Scribd Logo
Fazer o upload

Bem-vindo(a) ao Scribd!

  • The Family of Wood Composites

    Enviado por

    Beatriz Silva
    11 visualizações8 páginas
    Artigo sobre painéis industrializados derivados da madeira

    Título original

    THE FAMILY OF WOOD COMPOSITES

    Direitos autorais

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Formatos disponíveis

    PDF ou leia online no Scribd

    Você considera este documento útil?

    Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

    Denunciar este documento
    Artigo sobre painéis industrializados derivados da madeira

    Direitos autorais:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Baixe no formato PDF ou leia online no Scribd
    Sinalizar o conteúdo como inadequado
    11 visualizações8 páginas

    The Family of Wood Composites

    Enviado por

    Beatriz Silva
    Artigo sobre painéis industrializados derivados da madeira

    Direitos autorais:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Baixe no formato PDF ou leia online no Scribd
    Sinalizar o conteúdo como inadequado
    de 8
    THE FAMILY OF swoop _.....COMPOSITE....... _...... MATERIALS........ BY T.M. MALONEY Mbtions oF tons of wood composites ae now ‘manufactured annually from previously unused species as well as forest and mill residues (and agricultural resi- dues), The development of these wood composites has ‘occurred mostly over the past 40 years. It isa revolution in the forest products industry albeita "silent revolution” not recognized by the general public. ‘The term “wood composites” is relatively new. The forest products industry has struggled to properly name the many different materials that have been developed by gluing small particles or other elements into larger ‘materials, In this discussion, composites are defined as materials that have the nality of being glued or ‘bonded together. This description covers a multitude of products and itis used to avoid the use of trade names that may confuse people. Most of today’s wood composites are of relatively recent origin, within the past 40 years. Composites include not only panels, but also molded products, ¢# lumber, large timbers, components, and products made with combinations of wood and other materials (e-g., plastic fiber or straw). Composites utilize what ‘was previously waste wood residue or little used ot noncommercial species. Even agricultural residues can be used, Very little raw material is wasted in the ‘manufacture of composites. Wood isa very energy efficent raw material. Almost half of the industrial materials manufactured in the United States are wood products; however, only about + percent of the total energy needed to manufacture all in~ dustrial materials is used by the forest products indus- FOREST PRODUCTS JOURNAL VOL. 48, NO. 2 tay, Wood composites efficiently use this energy-con- serving renewable resource. THE FAMILY OF eee WOOD COMPOSITES. . . ‘The term “composite” seems to be the most appropr ate to describe any wood material made of smaller pieces and glued together. Some composite materials found in today's world are panels, molded products, in- corganic-bonded products, and lumber or timber prod- ‘ucts. This composite family is shown on page 20. ‘This family can be expanded easily to include all types of laminated materials (from overlaid panels to laminated beams), edge-glued panels, components (I- beams, T-beam panels, stress-skin panels), and perhaps in the future even to large molded building parts or even buildings ‘A certain group of composites are now being srouped together and described as engineered wood products (EWP), for example, plywood, variations of Steuctaral panels, and glued laminated timber. Other composites such 2s particleboard and medium density fiberboard (MDF) have also recently been described as engineered wood products ‘Almost al of the composites can be engineered to various specifications, thus taking full advantage of ‘Wood's inherent properties while atthe same time im- proving upon these properties through materials sc Ence and technology. Also almost all ofthese eompos- ites can be used structurally. For some reason, recent ‘publications have ealled particleboard and MDF “eon Ttructural" This is untrue. These materials are being 19 The family of wood composites. used in North America and elsewhere in the world as structural panels in building. They are approved for structural use by various building codes and govern- ‘ment agencies. Even low density insulating board is ap- proved for structural use. s+ ++ PANEL PRODUCTS. ..... SOFTWOOD PLYWOOD. é Softwood plywood has dominated the North Ameri- can structural panel market for many years. However, oriented strandboard (OSB) now claims 2 very high pro- portion of this market because it usually isa lower cost product to manufacture. Significant improvements in plywood manufaccaring have resulted in reduced pro- ‘duction costs, which has enabled the softwood ply- 20 I oists are designed to put the greatest amount of wood whece it’s most needed, inthe top and bottom flanges. ‘wood industry to increase production and remain com petitive with OSB. in the past few years, however, are- duced timber supply in the western United States as ‘well as increases in veneer log prices have eaused a con- siderable number of plants to close. Plywood plants are now, for the most par, attempting to produce mostly higher value products rather than sheathing, subfloor, and other basic building panels, leaving much of the sheathing market to the lower cost OSB. Softwood plywood manufacture has undergone a cia- matic change in recent years. Some examples of the manufacturing changes include pretreatment ofthe ve- ner blocks, which has enhanced veneer quality and the amount of veneer produced; computerized X-Y peeler block chargers; ultrasonic veneer block scanning; pow- ered nose bars; and linear-positioned lathe knife car- riages, which have become part of the conventional lathe and further increase the amount of veneer pro- duced, Also, new lathes have been introduced that can peel blocks to cores of less than 2 inches in diameter. ‘Changes in the gluing system, such as gluing higher moisture content veneer and foaming the glue, have re- duced the amount of adhesive required and, hence, have lowered production costs. ‘A major breakthrough is the development of pheno- lic glues for use with veneers at moisture contents of 10 percent or more instead of 3 or 4 percent. This has re- sulted in higher dryer productivity, improved press pro- ductivity lowered glue spreads, better pre-pressing, bet- ter assembly time tolerance, improved veneer ghuability, and fewer panel blows. Some plants have obtained up to a 20 percent savings in glue cost, while sinmultane- ously saving on dryer and press costs ‘Gluing veneer with a high moisture content (up to 15 percent) results in a product closer to the eqquilib- rium value in actual use, thus reducing warp and di- mensional changes. However, a plant must operate un- der strict process controls to be successful in gluing high moisture content veneer, otherwise product qual- ity will be reduced significantly. FEBRUARY 1996 HARDWOOD PLYWOOD... .- Unlike softwood plywood, which is used mostly for structural applications, hardwood plywood is used both structurally and also as decorative panels, This is a prod- uct that can be traced back to ancient times. Today, in the United States, hardwood plywood includes hard- wood veneer applied over other substrate materials such as particleboard. A number of developments have taken place over the years that enable a plant to recover more veneer from a given log and to produce quality plywood more effi- Gently. The newer versions of lengthwise veneer slicers have been installed in many plants, particularly in East Asia, Australia, and now in North America, These slicers do not have the output of conventional slicers, but they work well in smaller plants. They allow the re- covery of dflicult-o-process wood in conventional op- erations and allow sawmills to produce veneer from quality wood material. Thus, sawmills have the oppor- ‘unity for a value-added product by producing veneer as well as lumber. Some of the reasons for using lengthwise slicers in- clude low investment, no foundation requirements, low energy consumption, complete, or near complete, utli- zation of the flitches, automatic operation, and the abil- ity to produce thin veneer with high-quality surfaces as well as thick veneer. The combination of a sawmill and ‘veneer mill has resulted in significantly increased prod- uct recovery and profit. A major competitor to hardwood plywood is thin MDE With appropriate high-quality overlays or prints, thin MDF appears the same as hardwood plywood. This product has captured significant amounts ofthe hard- wood plywood market. BLOCKBOARD. Blockboard is often overiooked today But its oid” technology, or variations on the old technology, could provide panel-building products in many places. Con- ventional blockboard panels have been made with strips of lumber in the core with crossbands of veneer orhardboard faces. A newer version is produced by glue edge jointing the core lumber strips and using thin lumber faces rather than veneer. The adhesive cost can be quite low. About 14 new plants have been built in Europe using this new technology. Blockboard is used for paneling, furniture, and extensively for concrete formwork in Europe. PARTICLEBOARD. Particleboard is # genei¢ term fora panel that is manufactured from lignocellulosic materials (usually ‘wood, primarily in the form of discrete pieces or parti- ds, 2s distinguished from fibers) combined with a syn- thetic resin or other suitable binder and then bonded to- gether under heat and pressure in @ hot press. The process uses the added binder to create the entire inter- particle bond; other materials may be added during FOREST PRODUGTS JOURNAL VOL. 46, NO. 2 manufacture to improve certain properties. Particle- boards are further defined by the method of pressing. ‘When the pressure is applied in the direction perpen dicular to the faces, as in a conventional multi-platen hhot press, they are defined as flat-platen pressed; and. when the applied pressure is parallel to the faces, they are defined as extruded. Particleboard remains the ‘world’s dominant furniture panel, although consider- able amounts of its production also go into structural applications such as manufactured home floors, roof sheathing, wall panels, stair treads, and for house floors elsewhere in the world. The first platen-pressed particleboard plant started operation in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1933. This small plant ran until 1942. A larger commercial plant commenced operation in Germany in 1941, The great increase in particleboard production started in the 1950s. Extruded particleboard was developed in Germany in 1947-49. A similar process was developed in the. United States. Numerous plants were built throughout the world including the United States. However, low production capacities and some board physical prop- erty limitations kept extruded particleboard from be- coming a major product line. ‘The basic raw materials for particleboard are plant residues or low-quality logs. Pliner shavings and saw- dust are the dominant raw materials in the United States and Canada because of the huge sawmill industry in these countries. Some recycled wood material, where itis economical to use such a substance, is now part of, the raw material supply. A new facility that mamufac- tures particleboard from straw just began operation in North Dakota. Bagasse (sugar cane stalks) has been used for board in a few countries. MEDIUM DENSITY FIBERBOARD. . MDF is « dry-formed panel product manufactured from lignocellulosic fibers combined with a synthetic resin of other suitable binder. The panels are com- pressed to a density of 0.50 to 0.80 specific gravity G1 to 50 pef) in a hot press by a process in which the ‘entire interfiber bond is created by the added binder. ‘Other materials may have been added during manu- facture to improve certain properties. Its generally accepted that MDF production started in Deposit, New York, in 1966, but arguments can be made that the first MDF was made in a plant in Oakridge, Ore- gon, or in a plant in Meridian, Mississippi. Many new MDF plants have been erected recently and many others are in the planning stages. There are now well over 100 plants worldwide. Thin and thick boards are being produced, Thin MDF is usually pro- duced by newer continuous presses, however, most of the newer plants also use these types of presses to pro- duce thicker panels A wide variety of raw material types can be handled in an MDF plant: pulp chips, planer shavings, plywood 21 I be pressed to form a panel that is about 2 inch thick, trim, and sawdust. Care must be taken to introduce all of these different raw material types into the process line at appropriate levels to ensure a consistent quality of fiber. Much of the world uses pulp chips to manufac- ture MDF; however, itis common in the United States and Canada to mostly use the same raw material as for particleboard: planer shavings and sawdust. Other non- ‘wood materials such as bagasse also make excellent MDE Many new MDF plants ate under construction, particularly in Southeast Asia and Indonesia. ‘The technology for producing MDF has improved greatly in recent years. It appears that a mixture of spe- cies can be handied better in an MDF plant than in a particleboard plant. However, there are still some prob- lems when there are significant chemical differences be- tween the species, particularly in designing the resin system. Urea-formaldehyde is still the dominant resin used. The interaction between the chemistry of the ‘wood species and the urea-formaldehyde is well known. Control of the species chemistry is needed to ensure that quality MDF is produced consistently. MDF lends itself well asa substitute for clear lumber. Itdoes not have grain structure, but finishes and over- lays can be used effectively to provide an MDF product that, in appearance, looks like wood. A considerable amount is now used for moldings or millwork, replac- ing solid wood, INSULATING BOARD. (NON-COMPRESSED FIBERBOARO). . Insulating board development started in 1914 ia Minnesota, but its manufacture has been slowly decreas- ing. This is a wet-process system where great amounts of water are used in the process, somewhat like in the manufacture of pulp and paper. The need to clean the water eflluent has been a major problem and competi- tion from foamed plastic panels has been a further fac- torn the decline of insulating board mamufacture. 22, Many surviving plants use mineral fiber rather than wood fiber in order to make products that are resistant to fire, ‘One insulating board product still enjoying great suc- ess in the United States is Homosote. This product is ade of waste newspaper and groundwood paper publi- cations waste, Manufacture started in 1916 (based on technology from Agasote Millboard in the United King- dom). Homosote is a structural product based on recy-

    Você também pode gostar