Forest hooligans: deformation-free wood products
There are several different methods and machines used to sort logs, sawn timber, or by-products such that in the end the right material is delivered to the right customer. Automatic sawmills must use equipment that can perform a quick and accurate assessment of the appearance quality or strength grade of the timber, for example using X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning of logs, or camera-based inspection of sawn timber.
The 'hooligans of the forest' project aim to identify excessively large defects in logs by CT scanning, which could cause problems later in the production line. Examples of such defects could be excessively large fiber distortions in the wood, which once the wood is dried could result in sawn timber that is deformed (bowed or twisted) to the extent that conveyor belts have difficulty in handling the sawn timber, or that cameras can not capture the entire piece of sawn timber because it is partially outside the field of view. The value of such pieces of sawn timber is low and if such “hooligans” could be eliminated early on in the production process the remaining production process could be performed faster and more efficiently without the risk of problematic handling of such sawn timber with low value.
Project information
Subject: Quality assessment of timber
Time: May 2021 - May 2022
Contact
Linus Olofsson
- Associate Senior Lecturer
- 0910-585355
- linus.olofsson@ltu.se
- Linus Olofsson
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