The Australian timber industry produces around 33 million m3 of log product per year with a downstream wood products manufacturing industry worth $24B annually. Accessing higher value markets can often necessitate products with adequate and predictable structural performance that are resistant to degradation (decay and insects). For this reason, engineered wood products (EWPs) and preservative treatment are increasingly important. However, Australia, like many other countries, is challenged with some important commercial timbers that can be difficult to glue which limits the viability of engineered wood product manufacture.

Additionally, some mainstream commercial timbers are also problematic to preservative treat which limits access to lucrative markets. This study investigates the effects that the manufacturing process and the wood micro-structure has on wood permeability, gluability and treatability. Permeability is a property of a material that indicates how freely fluids and gases flow in response to a pressure gradient. Generally, less permeable wood types are more difficult to dry, treat and to glue.  This seminar will discuss wood permeability mainly in the context of wood adhesion (gluing) and wood treatment. Wood adhesion is concerned with the bonding of wood components together, in many cases to produce EWPs such cross laminated timber (CLT) and glue-laminated timber (glulam). Findings will be presented from studies on:

1) variation in permeability and relationships with wood micro-structure and resin and

2) the effects of different drying conditions and surface machining methods on wood wettability, permeability, gluability and treatability. Preliminary 2D and 3D imaging data from microscopy and Micro-CT work will also be introduced.

Zoom meeting: https://anu.zoom.us/j/91233740551

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