PAPER making! g! FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL ® Volume 11, Number 2, 2025
WOOD PANEL “An economical and environmentally friendly strategy for the preparation of high- density fiberboards by replacing wood fiber with CaCO 3 ”, Xuan Liu, Li Lu, Yunbiao Tang, Xinbing Li, Supeng Wang, Xingong Li, Yiqiang Wu, Ming Liu & Yan Qing, Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects , Vol.721, 20 September 2025, 137251. As an important component of interior materials, Fiberboard has advantages of being low-cost and renewable, but the practical use of firerboard was limited by depletion of forest resources and flammability. In this study, inspired by filler modification strategies employed in the papermaking industry, calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) was utilized as a functional filler to restructure the wood fiber matrix, yielding calcium carbonate- reinforced high-density fiberboard (CaCO 3 -HDF) with multiscale interfaces. Experimental results demonstrate that at a density of 900 kg·m −3 , the modulus of rupture (MOR) decreased from 60.51 MPa to 43.57 MPa with CaCO 3 substitution rates increasing from 0 % to 30 %. Notably, the internal bonding strength (IB) of the 30 % substitution sample reached 1.77 MPa, surpassing the control group's value of 1.65 MPa. Although the 24-hour thickness swelling (TS) increased proportionally with substitution rates, the material's thermal conduction efficiency was significantly enhanced, while formaldehyde emissions consistently met E0 standards. Combustion tests revealed substantially improved fire retardancy in 30 % CaCO 3 -HDF (900 kg·m −3 ), with total mass loss (TML), total heat release (THR), total smoke production (TSP), and total CO production (TCOP) decreasing by approximately 26 %, 33 %, 48 %, and 63 %, respectively. This strategy establishes a novel pathway for producing cost-effective multifunctional fiberboards. “Shear performance of single-layer unidirectional strand board (USB): modified testing methods”, Ahmadreza Ghazanfari, Lukas Malzl, Maximilian Pramreiter, Roman Myna, Johannes Konnerth & Benjamin Kromoser, Wood Material Science & Engineering , online. Timber construction has gained significant attention as a sustainable solution to meet the increasing demand driven by population growth. However, climate- induced hazards like forest fires, coupled with the scarcity of high-quality round timber raw materials, pose challenges to the production of traditional engineered wood products. Therefore, strand-based materials like unidirectional strand board (USB) have been developed to address these challenges, by utilizing low-quality wood resources. Shear properties are vital for USB's use in wall and slab elements facing lateral loads. However, the variety of direct and indirect shear methods complicates the determination of reliable results. This study evaluates the shear performance of single-layer USB using modified panel and planar shear tests, with comparisons drawn to oriented strand board (OSB/4). Both modified methods effectively characterized material’s directional variability, with vertical or orthogonal shearing dominating the failure modes. The findings confirmed the orthotropic behavior of USB, with higher shear properties in the processing direction compared to the transversal direction. In addition, USB demonstrated comparable shear performance to OSB/4 in the panel and planar tests in the processing direction. Future research should investigate other mechanical and physical properties, as well as the suitable shear methods for multi-layer USBs to account for mass timber. “Influence of screened fibre fractions on the properties of insulation panels made of different wood species”, Sascha Brinker, Christian Ahrens, Michael Gurnik, Aaron Kilian Mayer & Carsten Mai, Wood Material Science & Engineering , online. The aim of this study was to produce wood fibre insulation panels (WFIP) from under-utilised wood species and to investigate how various fibre fractions and fibre dimensional distributions affect the hygricmechanical properties and thermal conductivity. Thermo-mechanical pulping (TMP) fibres from five wood species were separated into three fractions
Technical Abstracts
Page 11 of 12
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease