Open AccessCOLOR CHANGE — MASS LOSS CORRELATION FOR HEAT-TREATED WOOD
Author(s) -
Cristina Olarescu,
Mihaela Câmpean
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
cbu international conference proceedings ...
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1805-997X
pISSN - 1805-9961
DOI - 10.12955/cbup.v2.483
Subject(s) - lightness , intensity (physics) , beech , lime , materials science , durability , pulp and paper industry , degree (music) , composite material , environmental science , mathematics , botany , computer science , engineering , acoustics , physics , artificial intelligence , optics , metallurgy , biology
Heat treatment is renowned as the most environmentally friendly process of dimensional stabilization that can be applied to wood, in order to make it suitable for outdoor uses. It also darkens wood color and improves wood durability. The intensity of heat treatment can be appreciated by means of two parameters: the color change occured in wood due to the high temperature, and the mass loss, which is a measure of the degree of thermal degradation. In order to find a mathematical correlation between these two parameters, an experimental study was conducted with four European wood species, which were heat-treated at 180°C and 200ºC, for 1-3 hours, under atmosheric pressure.The paper presents the results concerning the color changes and mass losses recorded for the heat-treated wood samples compared to untreated wood. For all four species, the dependency between the color change and the mass loss was found to be best described by a logarithmic regression equation with R2 of 0.93 to 0.99 for the soft species (spruce, pine and lime), and R2 of 0.77 for beech. The results of this study envisage to simplify the assessment procedure of the heat treatment efficiency, by only measuring the color – a feature that is both convenient and cost-effective.