Dimensional stability, wood

Feist, W.C. and Sell, J. (1987). Weathering behaviom of dimensionally stabilized wood by heating under pressme of nitrogen gas. Wood and Fiber Science, 19(2), 183-195. 

Guevera, R. and Moslem , A.A. (1984). Effect of alkylene oxides, furan resin and vinylpyrrolidinone on wood dimensional stability. Wood Science and Technology, 18(3), 225-240. 

Dimensionally Stabilized Wood. Wood that has been saturated by immersion in water for long periods of time and subjected to related biological deterioration will often require a dimensional stabilization treatment before drying can be permitted safely. This treatment is usually done with bulking compounds such as polyethylene glycol (PEG). 

Wood fiber - recycled plastic composite lumber is a relatively new development and is similar to PS addition to plastic lumber because the potential exists for improved mechanical properties and dimensional stabilities. Wood fiber addition can serve as an excellent reinforcement for plastics, and wood fibers are abundant, lightweight, nonabrasive, nonhazardous and inexpensive. An effort is being made to examine the incorporation of treated and untreated aspen fibers into recycled HDPE milk bottles [Yam et al., 1990]. The work has shown tensile strength and Izod impact strength below that of HDPE alone when aspen fiber is added. Tensile modulus and flexural modulus are increased significantly above HDPE alone with the addition of wood fiber. Dispersion of the fiber in the resin has been reported as a dominating factor in the process thus far. 

R. M. RoweU and W. B. Banks, Water Kepelkng and Dimensional Stability of Wood, General Technical Report FPL 50, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wise., 1985. 

Driers are used in the forest products industry to lower the moisture content of the wood product being processed. Drying of dimension lumber gives it dimensional stability. This type of drying is done in steam kilns and is a batch process. No appreciable pollutants are released. 

Other uses include impregnation of wood to improve dimensional stability and reduce water absorption, sealing of porous metal castings by impregnation, and coil impregnation, to give a rigid structure both heat and water resistant. 

Modifications of the wood surface can be performed by various physical, mechanical and chemical treatments. Chemical treatments especially are performed in order to enhance the dimensional stability, but also for amelioration of physical and mechanical properties or a higher resistance against physical, chemical and biological degradation. 

Analog-to-glass fibers silanes are used as coupling agents for natural fiber polymer composites. For example, the treatment of wood fibers with product A-175 improves wood dimensional stability [53]. In contrast, a decrease of mechanical properties was observed for coir-UP composites after a fiber modification with di-chloromethylvinyl silane [54]. The treatment of mercer-... 

Phenolic phenol formaldehydes (PFs) are the low-cost workhorse of the electrical industry (particularly in the past) low creep, excellent dimensional stability, good chemical resistance, good weatherability. Molded black or brown opaque handles for cookware are familiar applications. Also used as a caramel colored impregnating plastics for wood or cloth laminates, and (with reinforcement) for brake linings and many under-the-hood automotive electricals. There are different grades of phenolics that range from very low cost (with low performances) to high cost (with superior performances). The first of the thermosets to be injection-molded (1909). 

As discussed in Chapter 10, a wide variety of additives is used in the polymer industry. Stabilizers, waxes, and processing aids reduce degradation of the polymer during processing and use. Dyes and pigments provide the many hues that we observe in synthetic fabrics and molded articles, such as household containers and toys. Functional additives, such as glass fibers, carbon black, and metakaolins can improve dimensional stability, modulus, conductivity, or electrical resistivity of the polymer. Fillers can reduce the cost of the final part by replacing expensive resins with inexpensive materials such as wood flour and calcium carbonate. The additives chosen will depend on the properties desired. 

Wood modification is a means of altering the material to overcome or ameliorate one or more of its disadvantages. The aim of a modification may be to bring about an improvement in decay resistance or dimensional stability, to reduce water sorption, to improve weathering performance and so on. The term wood modification applies to the application of a process that alters the properties of the material such that during the lifetime of a product no loss of the enhanced performance of the wood should occur. 

If the modification imparts dimensional stability to the wood, the difference between the water-saturated and oven-dry volume of the wood sample is reduced, resulting in a lower value for S. The increase in dimensional stability can then be evaluated in terms of an anti-swelling efficiency (ASE) ... 

The use of a water-soaking, oven-drying series of cycles for the determination of dimensional stability of wood is a severe test (although it may produce useful data) and it does not necessarily reflect the conditions that wood will encounter in service conditions. As a result, some workers determine dimensional stability by subjecting samples to different relative humidities. It can be readily understood that dimensional stability values determined using different methods will not be comparable and it therefore needs to be explicitly stated how these values were obtained. 

Figure 2.8 Dimensional stabilization due to cell wall bulking. (A represents a modified wood and B unmodified).

Wood modification can improve the dimensional stabilization of wood by two mechanisms. Where the cell wall is filled in some way by the reagent (whether covalently bound or not), the cell wall is swollen. When the dimensional stability of the modified wood is subsequently determined, the wood can then only swell by an additional amount, which is dependent upon the bulking of the cell wall due to the volume occupied by the modifying agent. This is illustrated in Figures 2.8 and 2.9b. 

When dimensional stability is achieved due to cell wall bulking, the dimensional stabilization achieved is equal to the volume of the water-saturated sample minus the volume of the modified wood. Another class of modification reaction is due to cross-linking between the cell wall polymeric components. In this case, dimensional stability is imparted to the modified wood because movement of the cell wall is restrained, although the volume of the cell wall occupied by the modifying agent may still have an influence (Figure 2.9c). Ohmae etal. (2002) have suggested a method by which the various mechanisms can be... 

Research on resin-bonded boards has used wood chips, or fibres, that are acetylated prior to composite manufacture. In almost all cases, acetylation has been achieved by using uncatalysed acetic anhydride. Significant improvements in dimensional stability proportional to the WPG of the wood particles have been reported when acetylated wood is used, and there is also a reduction in irreversible swelling (e.g. Bekere etal., 1978 Arora etal., 1981 Rowell etal., 1986a-e, 1989, 1990, 1991,1995 Yoshida etal., 1986 Youngquist etal., 1986a,b, 1988 Larsson and Tillman, 1989 Subiyanto etal., 1989 Vick etal., 1991 Clemons etal., 1992 Kajita and Imamura, 1993 Sasaki and Kawai,... 

As noted previously in Chapter 3, the improved dimensional stability of wood as a result of anhydride modification has been found to be a function of WPG only, irrespective of the anhydride used for modification (Stamm and Tarkow, 1947 Hill and Jones, 1996b Li etal., 2000b). This shows that improved dimensional stability arises due to a bulking phenomenon, caused by the volume occupied by the bonded acyl adducts in the cell wall. The dimensional stabilization of wood modified with crotonic anhydride has also been reported ( etin and Ozmen, 2001). Reductions in the EMC have also been attributed to a bulking phenomenon (Papadopoulos and Hill, 2003), and in at least one example of decay protection (Papadopoulos and Hill, 2002). Further research is needed to determine if this is the case for resistance to other decay organisms. Only with the phenomenon of surface wettability does the relationship between a physical property of chemically modified wood and WPG seem to be broken (Hill and Jones, 1996c) (Table 4.1). 

---