Eng. Camelia Boieriu

Contribution to the Study of the Decorative Solid Wood Panels, Made of Hardwood, Used for Interior Decorations and Furniture

SCIENTIFIC COORDINATOR: Prof.Dr.Eng. Valentin Nastase

PhD thesis defended at "Transilvania" University of Brasov - Faculty of Wood Industry, May 2006

Considering the trend at international scale concerning more rational use of raw materials, the present theme proposes a solution for capitalizing small-sized wood of six valuable hardwood species (beech, maple, cherry, ash, oak and nut).

The new proposed composite material is a finger-jointed panel made of beech wood lamellas, mixed successively with the other five hardwood species. These composite panels intend to use small-sized wood resulted in the manufacturing process after cutting, sizing, sawing etc. in order to save wood resources, especially the most used ones, as beech and oak wood. The constitutive lamellas have the final section size of 20 x 20 mm and a variable length, as resulted in the manufacturing process.

The questions this PhD thesis had to answer to were as follows:

• Is it possible to mix beech wood with other species of hardwood (maple, cherry, oak, ash, nut) in order to obtain stable, strengthened and wear resistant panels that may be used for interior decorations and furniture manufacturing?
• Are these panels mechanically resistant?
• Are these panels also technological ones?
  

The performed research allowed formulating answers to all these questions and it also lead to several original results such as:

• Development of a new composite product.
• Theoretical and experimental study on the compatibility of hardwoods mixed with beech.
• Database on the behavior of the different hardwood species glued together in a finger-jointed panel and its correlation with the compatibility between species.
• Theoretical analysis of the mechanical properties of the new product using FEM.
• Experimental research on several properties (physical, thermal, mechanical, weathering) of the performed panels.
• Elaboration of a technical specification regarding the quality and manufacturing requirements for the new type of panels.

More detailed results obtained within the present research will be presented within a future issue of the PRO LIGNO journal.