Moisture Gradient Measurement During Kiln Drying of Red Oak
The key to improving drying quality and reducing drying time and energy consumption lies in understanding and controlling moisture movement during drying. As wood dries, strains and stresses develop as a result of restraints imposed by moisture gradients and differential shrinkage in wood. So a...
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Virginia Tech
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10919/37027 http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-91597-19239/ |
| Summary: | The key to improving drying quality and reducing drying time and energy consumption lies
in understanding and controlling moisture movement during drying. As wood dries, strains
and stresses develop as a result of restraints imposed by moisture gradients and differential
shrinkage in wood. So accurately measuring the moisture gradient in wood during drying
will be helpful to improving drying quality.
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In this project, moisture gradients in red oak will be measured through four different
techniques----<i><b>bandsaw slicing, Forstner bit layering, flaking and razor blade slicing</i></b>. The
first two techniques are found in the literature. The last two are developed in this study.
The results obtained with these four techniques were compared, and it was found that the
newly developed techniques could get moisture gradients that were closer to the true
value.
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The <i><b>thickness</i></b> of the slice was assumed to affect measuring the moisture gradient because
of the environmental influences. So a thickness series was tested with the two new
technique----flaking and razor blade slicing. The results showed that there was no slice or
flake thickness effect on the moisture gradients.And an optimum slice and flake thickness
was determined for the wood industries and research studies.
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Finally, the <i><b>directional</i></b> effect on transverse moisture movement during kiln drying was
examined through measuring moisture gradients in the tangential and radial directions of
wood. The results showed that moisture moved slightly faster in the radial direction than
in the tangential direction during kiln drying and the moisture gradients in the tangential
direction were slightly steeper than those in the radial direction. === Master of Science |
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