QUALITY MANAGEMENT OF LUMBER DRYING IN CONVECTIVE AUTOMATIC CHAMBERS

The timber industry complex of Russia has no less potential than the recognized flagships of the Russian industry – the oil and gas sector, the metallurgical and military-industrial complex. The potentialities of the Russian woodworking industry and such a traditional industry as sawmilling are especially great. According to available forecasts, despite significant growth in the production of panel materials, cardboard and paper, the demand for sawnwood will increase, especially in Europe. The recommendations for improving sawmill production emphasize the need to increase the volume of sawn timber drying, expand the range of products by producing targeted dry sawn timber, and bring the requirements for the quality of sawn timber drying to consumer requirements. Specific issues related to quality management of woodworking products have basically been resolved. At the same time, there are a number of bottlenecks in the management of drying quality that cannot be solved at once. This is especially true for issues related to the significant instability of the properties of wood subjected to drying. The system of controlled moisture exchange proposed by the authors makes it possible to largely neutralize the influence of the scatter of the initial properties of wood on the entire drying process. This applies to both the moisture removal process itself and the development of internal stresses in the wood with the provision of the required margin in order to avoid wood cracking. Moreover, the controlled moisture exchange system allows the formation of a drying regime in accordance with the required quality category with minimal energy consumption for drying.

Words high-frequency drying processes simulation of wooden tangent towers in a vacuum chamber

THE PURPOSE. The service life duration of wooden tangent towers used on overhead transmission lines with a voltage of up to 35 kV depends on the quality of lumber drying and subsequent impregnation. The drying of tangent tower workpieces is currently carried out by atmospheric or convective methods and is the longest and one of the energy-consuming stages of their production. At the same time, there are promising electrotechnological drying installations that can reduce the duration and improve drying quality at comparable specific energy costs. Such installations include vacuum high-frequency complexes, the wide introduction of which is complicated by a number of unresolved scientific and technical problems like optimizing vacuum high-frequency drying modes and ensuring electromagnetic field uniformity in long workpieces. The purpose of this article is to obtain mathematical tools that simultaneously describe the cross-effects of electromagnetic phenomena and heat and mass transfer processes in long-sized lumber and contribute to the further solution of these problems. METHODS. The positions of the theory of electromagnetic field, heat mass transfer and heat mass exchange, methods of mathematical modeling were used for this purpose. Also the results of previous studies of electromagnetic field distribution in the cross-section and longitudinal sections of the working chamber loading are taken into account. RESULTS. А one-dimensional mathematical model is obtained. It describes the influence of electromagnetic wave distribution along the length of tangent towers and external medium parameters on the temperature and moisture content in the material. This model is characterized by the possibility of using simple algorithms for analyzing differential equation systems based on the finite differe nce method and requiring less initial data on the drying material properties. CONCLUSION. The obtained by using the proposed model and the method of its analysis the numerical study results are compared with the available experimental data. Based on this comparison it is concluded that the obtained model is adequate and more effective relative to other existing models of vacuum high-frequency drying. Generally, further use of the presented mathematical toolkit to optimize the design and modes of vacuum-high-frequency complexes in the task of drying wooden tangent towers will increase the reliability of overhead transmission lines.

Kiln Drying Operations Scheduling with Dynamic Composition of Loading Patterns

Planning and scheduling wood lumber drying operations is a very difficult problem. The literature proposes different methods aiming to minimize order lateness. They all make use of pre-established kiln loading patterns that are known to offer good physical stability in the kiln and allow full kiln space utilization. Instead, we propose a mixed integer programming (MIP) model, which can be used to generate loading patterns “on the fly.” This MIP model can be integrated into existing kiln drying operation planning/scheduling systems in order to improve their solutions. We show how this integration can be done by adapting a state of the art drying operations planning and scheduling methodology from the literature. We compare the solutions obtained by this system using the predefined loading patterns versus the solutions it generates if it is connected to our loading patterns generator MIP model. The study shows it is much better to dynamically create loading patterns than to use predefined ones, as most North American sawmills do.

The radial gradient of moisture content of silver birch wood in different seasons

Silver birch ( Roth) is classified in diffuse-porous wood category. In this case structure of wood tissue is quite similar across whole cross-sectional area. The aim of this study was to analyse cross-section variability of moisture content (MC) of growing silver birch wood, significant hardwood species in Polish forests. Investigations were performed on 120 model trees. In the trunk of each model tree, an increment core was collected at breast height. Samples were collected of 30 different trees in four different seasons. The greatest MC was observed during winter, lowest MC in summer. Differences in MC were statistically significant only between winter versus spring, summer, and autumn. Distribution of MC on cross-section was similar in each season. The greatest average value was observed close to pith, then it was decreasing in bark direction. The greatest difference between observed in spring – 19.51% (p < 0.05) and lowest in autumn – 4.66%. Distribution of green density (GD) on cross section was inverse proportional to MC value. Variations in GD and MC are relevant for log transport planning, weight-scaling systems, lumber drying and dynamic assessment of stiffness. Therefore, from an environmental loss perspective, it is important to determine changes in MC and GD across the year.Betula pendula

Publisher Correction: Moisture transverse moving mechanism during presteamed oak lumber drying

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Optimizing lumber drying schedules for Oriental beech and sessile oak using acoustic emission

The aim of this work was to detect sounds providing evidence of the creation of drying defects and to correlate such data with drying quality. A further goal was to establish sound wave thresholds of ideal drying through the drying process by using an acoustic emission (AE) monitoring method. Thus, it is projected to decrease long drying times and also drying costs by reaching to ideal drying schedules. In this study, commercially preferred sessile oak and oriental beech structural lumbers were dried with three different schedules in a conventional kiln. The lumbers were “listened to” with AE sensors while drying according to the first two schedules, which were called protective and severe, respectively. AE events of the drying experiments were compared with ambient conditions and drying classes according to the standard of European Drying Group. The third drying schedule was optimized based on the AE peaks and applied. The results showed that ideal drying times were reduced up to 19% relative to the protective drying schedule, while obtaining the same drying quality for both species.