TWE 211: Introduction to Wood Products

Industries MODULE
3: Wood Products
Industries LECTURER: Dr N A ADEWOLE
INTRODUCTION
Wood provides shelter, furniture, flooring,
and cabinetry, as
well as
smaller items from bowls to toys to
chopsticks. It is the
building material
of choice for strength, aesthetic appeal and
environmental
responsibility.
 Wood is renewable, recyclable and
reusable, and stores
carbon. Moreover, it
is less energy and carbon-intensive to
produce than competing
materials
like concrete and steel. Wood is a globally-
traded commodity
that supports
economic growth. Wood users have
adopted a sustainable
approach to
harvesting wood and each year the forest
products industry
encourages
 planting of more trees.
Industries in the Wood Product
Manufacturing subsector
manufacture wood
products, such as lumber, plywood,
veneers, wood containers,
wood flooring,
wood trusses, manufactured homes (i.e.,
mobile homes), and
prefabricated
wood buildings. The production processes
of the Wood
Product Manufacturing
subsector include sawing, planing, shaping,
laminating, and
 assembling of
wood products starting from logs that are
cut into bolts, or
lumber that
then may be further cut, or shaped by
lathes or other shaping
tools. The
lumber or other transformed wood shapes
may also be
subsequently planed or
smoothed, and assembled into finished
products, such as
wood containers.
The Wood Product Manufacturing
subsector includes
 establishments that make
wood products from logs and bolts that are
sawed and
shaped, and
establishments that purchase sawed
lumber and make wood
products. Wood
products industry therefore is any industry
that is involved in
wood
processing. Wood processing involves the
conversion of trees
into useful
consumer products and/or engineering
materials such as
 paper, charcoal,
treated and untreated lumber, plywood,
particle board, wafer
board, medium
density fiber board among others. During
the conversion
processes, the
major pollutants of concern are
particulate, PM-10, and
volatile organic
compounds. There also may be speculated
organic
compounds that may be toxic
or hazardous. Let us review the activities in
some of these
 wood industries.
SAWMILLING A sawmill or lumber mill is a
facility where logs
< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logging
>are cut into lumber
< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumber >.
Prior to the invention
of the
sawmill, boards were rived (split) and
planed, or more often
sawn by two
men with a whipsaw <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Whipsaw>, one above and
 another in a saw pit below. A sawmill's
basic operation is
much like those
of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on
one end and
dimensional lumber
< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Lumber#Dimensional_lumber >exits on the
other
end.
PLYWOOD MANUFACTURING Plywood is a
building material
consisting of veneers
(thin wood layers or plies) bonded with an
adhesive. Plywood
 can be
manufactured from softwood and
hardwood. Softwoods
generally correspond to
coniferous species. The most commonly
used softwoods for
manufacturing
plywood are firs and pines. Hardwoods
generally correspond
to deciduous
species. For hardwood plywood,
commonly used wood
species include Gmelina
arborea, Cordial milleni, oak, poplar,
maple, cherry, and larch.
 Plywood is
manufactured by gluing several layers of
dry wood veneers
together with an
adhesive. There is outer layers (face and
back) surround a
core which is
usually lumber, veneer, particleboard, or
medium density
fiberboard.
Plywood may be pressed into panels or
plywood components
like curved
plywood, seat backs, chair arms, among
others. Plywood is
 used for interior
applications such as furniture, cabinets,
architectural millwork,
paneling,
flooring, store fixtures, doors, wall siding,
sheathing, roof
decking,
concrete form-boards, floors, and
containers.
RECONSTITUTED WOOD PRODUCTS Wood
is sometimes
reduced before being
reconstituted into other products like:
i.) Wafer-board and Oriented Strand-board
Waferboard (WB)
 and oriented
strandboard (OSB) belong to the subset of
reconstituted wood
panel products
called flakeboards. They are structural
panels made from
wood wafers
specially produced from logs at the plant.
When waferboard
was developed in
the 1950s, the wafers were not
intentionally oriented. However,
by 1989
most waferboard plants were producing
oriented waferboard
 (OWB). Oriented
strandboard originated in the early 1980s.
The relatively long
and narrow
flakes (strands) are blended with resin and
formed into a 3- or
5-layered
mat. Aligning the strands in each layer
perpendicular to
adjacent layers
gives OSB flexural properties superior to
those of randomly
oriented
waferboard. Oriented waferboard and OSB
are suitable for the
 same markets
and uses as softwood plywood including
sheathing, single-
layer flooring,
and underlayment in light-frame
construction.
ii.) Particleboard Particleboard is defined
as a panel product
manufactured
from lignocellulosic materials, primarily in
the form of discrete
particles, combined with a synthetic resin
or other suitable
binder and
bonded together under heat and pressure.
The primary
difference between
particleboard and other reconstituted
wood products, such as
waferboard,
oriented strandboard, medium density
fiberboard, and
hardboard, is the
material or particles used in its production.
The major types of
particles
used to manufacture particleboard include
wood shavings,
flakes, wafers,
chips, sawdust, strands, slivers, and wood
wool. The term
particleboard
sometimes is used generically to include
waferboard and
oriented
strandboard, which are manufactured
primarily with wood
flakes and wafers.
However, for the purposes of this report,
particleboard pertains
only to
panels manufactured from a mixture of
wood particles or
otherwise from wood
 particles other than wafers and flakes.
Particleboard include
hardboard,
insulation board, medium density
fiberboard, waferboard and
oriented
strandboard in addition to particleboard.
iii.)Medium Density Fiberboard The
Medium Density
Fiberboard (MDF) is a
dry-formed panel product manufactured
from lignocellulosic
fibers combined
with a synthetic resin or other suitable
binder. The panels are
 compressed
to a density of from 496 to 801 kilograms
per cubic meter in a
hot press.
The entire inter-fiber bond is formed by a
synthetic resin or
other
suitable organic binder. In contrast to
particleboard, MDF has
more uniform
density throughout the board and has
smooth, tight edges that
can be
machined. It can be finished to a smooth
surface and grain
 printed,
eliminating the need for veneers and
laminates. Most of the
thicker MDF
panels (1.27 to 1.91cm) are used as core
material in furniture
panels.
Medium density fiberboard panels thinner
than 1.27 cm
typically are used
for siding.
iv.) Hardboard and Fiberboard, Fiberboard
is a low-density
insulation
board used for housing, roofing, and office
furnishings.
Hardboard is
similar to fiberboard, except that
hardboard is more dense
than fiberboard.
Hardboard is used for applications in
housing (e.g., exterior
siding,
garage doors, and interior door facings),
furniture, store
fixtures,
automotive interiors, and toys. The most
frequently used raw
material for
production of fiberboard products is wood
chips which are first
softened in
a pressurized steam vessel (digester) and
then refined or
pulped into wood
fibers. The fibers may then be mixed with
resin, formed into
mats, and
pressed and/or dried to form panel
products. Other materials
may be added
during manufacture to improve certain
properties such as
stiffness,
hardness, finishing properties, resistance
to abrasion and
moisture, as
well as to increase strength, durability and
utility. Hardboard/
fiberboard
may also include oriented strandboard,
medium density
fiberboard, and
particleboard.
ENGINEERED WOOD PRODUCTS
Engineered wood products
(EWP) are made from
lumber, veneers, strands of wood, or from
other small wood
 elements that
are bound together with structural resins
to form lumber-like
structural
products. They are designed for use in the
same structural
applications as
sawn lumber (e.g., girders, beams,
headers, joists, studs, and
columns).
These products allow production of large-
lumber substitutes
from small
lower-grade logs. Engineered wood
products manufacturing
 facilities often
manufacture more than one type of
engineered wood product.
Examples are:
i.) Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL)
Laminated veneer lumber
consists of
layers of wood veneers laminated together
with the grain of
each veneer
aligned primarily along the length of the
finished product. The
veneers
used to manufacture LVL are about 3.2
millimeters (mm)
 (0.125 inches [in])
thick and are made from rotary-peeled
hardwood (e.g., yellow
poplar) or
softwood species. Laminated veneer
lumber is used for
headers, beams,
rafters, and I-joist flanges. Figure 10.9-1 is a
diagram of the
LVL
manufacturing process
ii.) Laminated Strand Lumber (LSL)
Laminated strand lumber
is made up of
wood strands glued together with the grain
of each strand
oriented parallel
to the length of the finished product.
iii.)Parallel Strand Lumber (PSL) Parallel
strand lumber is
manufactured by
gluing strips of veneer together with the
grain of each veneer
piece
oriented parallel to the length of the
finished product. Both
hardwood and
softwood species are used to manufacture
PSL.
 iv.) I-joists Wood I-joists are a family of
engineered wood
products
consisting of a web made from a structural
panel such as
plywood or OSB
which is glued between two flanges made
from sawn lumber
or LVL. I-joists
are available in many sizes and depths.
They are used in
residential and
commercial buildings as floor joists, roof
joists, headers, and
for other
structural applications. The processes for
manufacturing wood
I-joists vary
throughout the industry. There are
highvolume automated
production lines
that operate continuously and produce
more that 107 linear
meters (350 ft)
per minute. There are also custom hand
lay-up processes that
are used for
heavier commercial grade I-joists.
Regardless of the process,
the general
steps used to fabricate I-joists are the same
and include:
flange
preparation, web preparation, I-joist
assembly, I-joist curing,
cutting,
and packaging for shipment.
v.) Glue-laminated beams (glulam) Glue-
laminated beams are
manufactured by
gluing lumber faces together to form larger
structural members
for
applications such as ridge beams, garage
door headers, floor
 beams, and
arches. The glulam manufacturing process
consists of four
phases: (1)
drying and grading the lumber; (2) end-
jointing the lumber into
longer
laminations; (3) face gluing the
laminations; and (4) finishing
and
fabrication.
Lumber used to manufacture glulam may
be dried in onsite
lumber kilns or
 purchased pre-dried from suppliers. The
moisture content of
the lumber
entering the glulam manufacturing process
can be determined
by sampling
from the lumber supply with a hand-held
moisture meter or
with a continuous
inline meter that checks the moisture of
each board. Those
boards with
moisture content greater than a given
threshold are removed
from the
 process and re-dried. Re-drying may be
accomplished through
air drying or
kiln drying. Lumber kilns are discussed in
Section 10.1. Once
the lumber is
checked for moisture, knots appearing on
the ends of the
lumber may be
trimmed off and the lumber is graded. The
lumber is sorted
into stacks
based on the grade it receives. To
manufacture glulam in
lengths beyond
 those commonly available for sawn
lumber, the lumber must
be end-jointed.
The most common end joint is a finger
joint about 2.8 cm (1.1
in) long. The
finger joints are machined on both ends of
the lumber with
special cutter
heads. A structural resin, such as an RF
curing melamine-
formaldehyde (MF)
or PF resin, is applied and the joints in
successive boards are
mated. The
 resin is cured with the joint under end
pressure. Most
manufacturers use a
continuous RF curing system to cure end
joints.
PULP AND PAPER MANUFACTURING
The purpose of pulping <
http://printwiki.org/Pulping >is to
reduce wood (or
other fibrous raw material) to individual
cellulose
< http://printwiki.org/Cellulose >fibers. A
non-fibrous
constituent of wood,
lignin < http://printwiki.org/Lignin >, binds
cellulose fibers
together, and
is primarily responsible for reducing paper
quality and its
permanence.Wood
is often pulped Chemically or Mechanically.
Chemical pulping involves the extraction of
cellulose from
wood by
dissolving the lignin that binds the
cellulose fibers together.
The 4
processes principally used in chemical
pulping are kraft,
 sulfite, neutral
sulfite semichemical (NSSC), and soda. The
first 3 display the
greatest
potential for causing air pollution. The
kraft process alone
accounts for
over 80 percent of the chemical pulp
produced in the United
States. The
choice of pulping process is determined by
the desired
product, by the wood
species available, and by economic
considerations.
Mechanical pulping method converts logs
or wood chips into
paper pulp
< http://printwiki.org/Pulp >for use in
papermaking by
mechanical grinding,
as opposed to chemical pulping <
http://printwiki.org/
Chemical_Pulping >.
Traditional mechanical pulping involves
forcing logs against a
revolving
stone, which grinds the logs into pulp by
abrasive action. The
stone is
sprayed with water to remove fibers from
the pulp stone, and
to prevent
fiber damage due to friction-generated
heat. The production of
mechanical
pulp (also called groundwood <
http://printwiki.org/
Groundwood>) results in
little removal of lignin content, and
consequently produces
paper that is
not of as high a quality as other pulping
methods that remove
significant
 amounts of lignin.
Paper products are renewable, recyclable,
sustainable –
and able to
meet the increasing global demand for
sustainable products
while also
developing innovative solutions to
challenges posed by the
growing world
population. Paper is incredibly versatile.
New and innovative
paper
products are being developed while
constant improvements are
 made to
existing products that play a key role in
nearly all aspects of
everyday
modern life:
Paper is taken from the bin and deposited
in a large recycling
container
along with paper from other recycling bins.
The paper is taken
to a
recycling plant where it is separated into
types and grades.
The separated
paper is then washed with soapy water to
remove inks, plastic
film, staples
and glue. The paper is put into a large
holder where it is
mixed with water
to create ‘slurry’. By adding different
materials to the slurry,
different
paper products can be created, such as
cardboard, newsprints
or office
paper. The slurry is spread using large
rollers into large thin
sheets. The
paper is left to dry, and then it is rolled up
ready to be cut and
sent
back to the shops. Wood Preservation
industry Wood
preservation is the
pressure or thermal impregnation of
chemicals into wood to
provide
effective long-term resistance to attack by
fungi, bacteria,
insects, and
marine borers. By extending the service life
of timber products,
wood
preservation reduces the need for harvest
of already stressed
forestry
resources, reduces operating costs in
industries such as
utilities and
railroads, and ensures safe working
conditions where timbers
are used as
support structures. Seventy-five percent of
the wood treatment
plants in
the United States are concentrated in two
distinct regions. One
of these
 regions extends from east Texas to
Maryland, corresponding
roughly to the
natural range of southern pines, which is
the major species
utilized. The
second, smaller region is along the Pacific
coast, where
Douglas fir and
western red cedar are the predominant
species. The remaining
25 percent of
wood treatment plants are scattered
throughout the United
States. Charcoal
 production Charcoal is the solid carbon
residue following the
pyrolysis
(carbonization or destructive distillation) of
carbonaceous raw
materials.
Principal raw materials are medium to
dense hardwoods such
as beech, birch,
hard maple, hickory, and oak. Others are
softwoods (primarily
long leaf and
slash pine), nutshells, fruit pits, coal,
vegetable wastes, and
paper mill
residues. Charcoal is used primarily as a
fuel for outdoor
cooking. In some
instances, its manufacture may be
considered as a solid
waste disposal
technique. Many raw materials for
charcoal manufacture are
wastes, as
noted. Charcoal manufacture is also used
in forest
management for disposal
of refuse. Recovery of acetic acid and
methanol byproducts
was initially
 responsible for stimulating the charcoal
industry. As synthetic
production
of these chemicals became
commercialized, recovery of acetic
acid and
methanol became uneconomical. Charcoal
manufacturing
kilns generally can be
classified as either batch or continuous
multiple hearth kilns;
continuous
multiple hearth kilns are more commonly
used than are batch
kilns. Batch
units such as the Missouri-type charcoal
kiln (Figure 10.7-1)
are small
manually-loaded and -unloaded kilns
producing typically 16
megagrams (Mg)
(17.6 tons) of charcoal during a 3-week
cycle. Continuous
units (Figure
10.7-2) produce an average of 2.5 Mg per
hour (Mg/hr) (2.75
tons per hour
[tons/hr]) of charcoal. During the
manufacturing process, the
wood is
 heated, driving off water and highly
volatile organic
compounds (VOC). Wood
temperature rises to approximately 275 C
(527 F), and the
VOC distillate
yield increases. At this point, external
application of heat is no
longer
required because the carbonization
reactions become
exothermic. At 350 C
(662 F), exothermic pyrolysis ends, and
heat is again applied
to remove the
 less volatile tarry materials from the
product charcoal.
Fabrication of
briquettes from raw material may be either
an integral part of
a charcoal
producing facility, or an independent
operation, with charcoal
being
received as raw material. Figure 10.7-3
presents a flow
diagram for
charcoal briquette production. Raw
charcoal is first crushed to
pass
 through an approximately 3 millimeter
(0.12 inch) screen
aperture and then
stored for briquetting. The charcoal is then
mixed with a
binder to form a
65 to 70 percent charcoal mixture. Typical
binder solutions are
9 to 10
percent by weight solutions of cornstarch,
milostarch, or
wheatstarch.
Sawdust or other materials may be added
to obtain faster
burning or higher
temperatures. Briquettes are then formed
in a press and dried
at
approximately 135 C (275 F) for 3 to 4
hours, resulting in a
product with a
5 percent moisture content. This process
generates a briquette
of
approximately 90 percent pyrolysis
product. Furniture and
Matchstick
industries This is an area of comparative
advantage as
Nigeria occupies the
tenth and third positions in the world and
Africa respectively
among Timber
Producing Countries. As a sub-category of
carpentry, the
furniture industry
is a major catalyst of economic growth. The
Wood and Wood
Product sector
contributed about 0.22% (N179.6 billion) of
the Manufacturing
Sector Share
of 6.83% (N5.4 trillion) to Nigeria’s Re-
based GDP in 2013,
with a
predictable annual growth rate of 5.2%.
With predominance of
raw
materials, rural to urban migration,
improved living standard
and demand
for better housing with bespoke finishing
in the urban centres;
the
furniture sector is proving to be a gold
mine of sort in the
country and
attracting a good number of semi-skilled
and professional
furniture
 makers. This Product will provide the
needed financing
required to grow the
furniture industry and create widespread
impact in the Wood
and Wood
Product sector of Nigeria’s economy. In
2014, the sector
accounted for
2,395 formal jobs in Nigeria. This product
will provide furniture
makers
the needed financial assistance to acquire
modern equipment
for improved
output that can compete globally as well as
create more jobs.
Wood Equipment manufacturing Wood
Services Industries
From small one-off
projects to highly complex, long term
programmes and rolling
maintenance
contracts, Wood Group Industrial Services
is delivering these
specialist
services successfully across seven strategic
sectors: marine,
oil & gas,
process & energy, rail & highways,
chemical & industrial, civil
engineering
and utilities.