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Performance evaluation of wood by the development of fast and nondestructive methods.
Description of technological performances of any wood requires the understanding of a great number of characteristics which are usually long, tedious and expensive to measure. Let us quote, for example, the natural durability. This description is useful on two levels:
- for the selector and the manager which need to know and to control the produced quality in order to better manage and adjust it to the required quality.
- for the transformer or the user which must identify the characteristics of the material, as well as possible, in order to qualify, classify and better employ the performances of each produced element.
These objectives result in seeking measurement methods not very expensive, fast, reliable and if possible nondestructive. By definition, nondestructive evaluation of materials is the science which makes possible to identify physical and mechanical properties of an element without changing its possibilities of final use.
Analyze and modeling of the heterogeneity of wood properties within trees. Two reference species: eucalyptus and teak.
These two tree species present high contrast for technological characteristics and have very different uses:
- Eucalyptus is by far the genera most planted in tropical zone, due to its environmental plasticity and its speed of growth. It is mainly used as industrial wood, but it is clear that its increasing use as timber wood request an important investment on research. It is also a model genera for many of the activities of research, in particular in the field of the genetic selection.
- Teak is between the hardwood species with highest added value, presenting continuous growth of its planted surface. Meanwhile, rotations decrease progressively, effecting on the produced wood quality.
Development of specific processes of conditioning or transformation of wood.
This field of research consists in proposing solutions adapted to optimize planted wood valorization by holding account of the forest stand structure, technical context and also social, economic and ecological context.
[Back to top]Research activity context
Tropical plantations are mostly intended to provide wood for paper pulp and panels’ production,
as well as to supply firewood and service wood products. A small proportion is intended for timber production.
We have attended for several years an increasing will to produce, in larger scale, timber of higher quality.
Producing a raw material, which is renewable and present low environmental impact, and to replace the wood
of certain tree species of natural forests by wood of plantations is technologically possible for many uses.
This objective requires in particular:
- the understanding of the heterogeneity of technological properties
- to better manage the quality produced during forest growth
- to adapt techniques of first and second transformation
- to make evolve/move the products marketed according to the specificity of the resource
