Wood drying
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Wood drying refers to reducing the moisture content of wood prior to
its use. The two most important issues are 1) the level of moisture
desirable and 2) the means to achieve this.
With regard to the level of moisture, for some purposes wood is not
dried at all, prior to its use. It is used as is, "green". For other
purposes wood must be in equilibrium to the outside air, as in much
construction wood. For use indoors, as in furniture, wood must be in
equilibrium with the air indoors.
With regard to the means used in drying a distinction is made
between air-dried wood (AD) and kiln-dried wood (KD). There are many
different types of kilns, as time used for drying is an economic
factor, and new types of kiln are constantly being developed to
reduce drying time.
Usually wood is sawn prior to drying, but this is not always so. As
drying in the log takes a long time, especially for big logs, sawing
prior to drying is the rule. If wood is to be kiln dried it will
always be sawn first. |
Wood structureWood is composed of cells, and is an anisotropic material.
Commercial timbers are broadly classified into two categories,
namely softwoods and hardwoods.
Softwoods are relatively simple in structure: more than 90% of the
volume is composed of tracheids (Walker et al., 1993), axially
elongate cells of 2 to 5 mm in length. Density will commonly be in
the range of 350 to 700 kg/m3, basic density at 12% moisture content
(Desch and Dinwoodie, 1996). Conversion and drying procedures for
softwoods are better established than for hardwoods. A prime reason
is that softwoods comprise the bulk of the wood used, and commercial
plantings are mostly softwood. Research institutes in Europe and
North America, also in New Zealand and Australia have devoted time
to softwoods. The plantation area for softwoods is about 1 million
ha in Australia according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural
and Resource Economics (ABARE, 2000) and about 1.7 million ha in New
Zealand (source: New Zealand Forestry, 2002). Much of this is
radiata pine (Pinus radiata)
The processing of hardwoods is more complex because of diversity.
There are up to a hundred times as many species of hardwood trees as
there are softwoods, and hardwood trees grow in a much wider range
of ecological niches than softwoods. Density of commercial hardwoods
commonly is in the range of 450 to 1250 kg/m3 basic density at 12%
moisture content (Desch and Dinwoodie, 1996). Hardwood may have low
lateral permeability, compared with softwoods. For example, the
transverse permeability of green wood from Eucalyptus delegatensis
is in the order of 4.6x10e-18 m2, whereas the permeability of green
wood of Pinus radiata is 263 to 410x10e-18 m2 (Langrish and Walker,
1993). Blackbutt (Eucalyptus pilularis) is a difficult to dry
hardwood species (Bootle, 1994). Also the structure of hardwood
shows a much greater range of variation than for softwood.Wood-water relationships
The timber of living trees and freshly felled logs contains a large
amount of water, which often constitutes more weight than the actual
wood. Water has a significant influence on wood: wood continually
exchanges moisture (water) with its surroundings, although the rate
of exchange is strongly affected by the degree wood is sealed.
Water in wood may be present in two forms:
Free water
Free water: The bulk of water contained in the cell Lumina is only
held by capillary forces: it is not bound chemically and is termed
free water. Free water is not in the same thermodynamic state as
liquid water: energy is required to overcome the capillary forces.
Furthermore, free water may contain chemicals, altering the drying
characteristics.
Bound or hygroscopic water: Bound water is bound to the wood via
hydrogen bonds. The attraction of wood for water arises from the
presence of free hydroxyl (OH) groups in the cellulose,
hemicelluloses and lignin molecules in the cell wall. The hydroxyl
groups are negatively charged electrically. Water is a polar liquid.
The free hydroxyl groups in cellulose attract and hold water by
hydrogen bonding.
Water in cell Lumina may be in the form of water vapor, but the
total amount is normally negligible, at normal temperatures and
moisture contents.
Wood is a hygroscopic substance. It has the ability to take in or
give off moisture in the form of vapor. The water contained in wood
exerts a vapor pressure of its own, which is determined by the
maximum size of the capillaries filled with water at any time. If
the water vapor pressure in the ambient space is lower than the
vapor pressure within wood, desorption takes place. The largest
sized capillaries, which are full of water at the time, empty first.
The vapor pressure within the wood falls as water is successively
contained in smaller and smaller sized capillaries. A stage is
eventually reached when the vapour pressure within the wood equals
the vapour pressure in the ambient space above the wood, and further
desorption ceases. The amount of moisture that remains in the wood
at this stage is in equilibrium with the water vapour pressure in
the ambient space, and is termed the equilibrium moisture content or
EMC (Siau, 1984). Because of its hygroscopicity, wood tends to reach
a moisture content that is in equilibrium with the relative humidity
and temperature of the surrounding air. The EMC of wood varies with
the ambient relative humidity (a function of temperature)
significantly, to a lesser degree with the temperature. Siau (1984)
reported that the EMC also varies very slightly with species,
mechanical stress, drying history of wood, density, extractives
content and the direction of sorption in which the moisture change
takes place (i.e. adsorption or desorption).
Wood drying (not to be confused with "seasoning") may be described
as the art of ensuring that gross dimensional changes through
shrinkage are confined to the drying process. Ideally, wood is dried
to that equilibrium moisture content as will later (in service) be
attained by the wood. Thus, further dimensional change will be kept
to a minimum.
It is probably impossible to completely eliminate movement in wood,
but this may be approximated by chemical modification. This is the
treatment of wood with chemicals to replace the hydroxyl groups with
other hydrophobic functional groups of modifying agents (Stamm,
1964). Among all the existing processes, wood modification with
acetic anhydride has considerable promise due to the high
anti-shrink or anti-swell efficiency (ASE) attainable without
damaging the wood properties. However, acetylating of wood has been
slow to be commercialized due to the cost, corrosion and the
entrapment of the acetic acid in wood. There is extensive literature
relating to the chemical modification of wood (Rowell, 1983, 1991;
Kumar, 1994; Haque, 1997).
Drying timber is one approach for adding value to sawn products from
the primary wood processing industries. According to the Australian
Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation (FWPRDC),
green sawn hardwood, which is sold at about $350 per cubic meter or
less, increases in value to $2,000 per cubic meter or more with
drying and processing. However, currently-used conventional drying
processes often result in significant quality problems from cracks,
both externally and internally, reducing the value of the product.
As an example, in Queensland alone (Anon, 1997), assuming that 10%
of the dried softwood is devalued by $200 per cubic meter because of
drying defects, saw millers are losing about $5 million per year in
that State alone. Australia wide this could be $40 million per year
for softwood and an equal or higher amount for hardwood. Thus proper
drying under controlled conditions (prior to use) is of great
importance in timber utilization in any country, where climatic
conditions vary considerably at different times of the year.
Drying, if carried out promptly after the felling of trees, also
protects timber against primary decay, fungal stain and attack by
certain kinds of insects. Organisms, which cause decay and stain,
generally cannot thrive in timber with a moisture content below 20%.
Several, though not all, insect pests can live only in green timber.
Dried wood is less susceptible to decay than green wood (above 20%
moisture content).
Apart from the above important advantages of drying timber, the
following points are also significant (Walker et al., 1993; Desch
and Dinwoodie, 1996):
Dried timber is lighter, and hence the transportation and handling
costs are reduced.
Dried timber is stronger than green timber in most strength
properties.
Timbers for impregnation with preservatives have to be properly
dried if proper penetration is to be accomplished, particularly in
the case of oil-type preservatives.
In the field of chemical modification of wood and wood products, the
material should be dried to a certain moisture content for the
appropriate reactions to occur.
Dry wood works, machines, finishes and glues better than green
timber. Paints and finishes last longer on dry timber.
The electrical and thermal insulation properties of wood are
improved by drying.
Prompt drying of wood immediately after felling therefore results in
significant upgrading of, and value adding to, the raw timber.
Drying enables substantial long term economy in timber utilization
by rationalizing the utilization of timber resources. The drying of
wood is thus an area for research and development, which concerns
many researchers and timber companies around the world. |
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