초록
Because Japanese cedar shows lower mechanical performance, glued-laminated timber (glulam) can be a better way to utilize Japanese cedar for structural purpose. However, low yield of higher grade lamination from log makes it difficult to design structural glulam. This study was aimed to increase the yield of higher grade lamination and provide higher efficiency of manufacturing structural lamination by ultrasonic log sorting technology. Logs were sorted by an existing log grading rule regulated by Korea Forest Research Institute (KFRI). It was found that the KFRI log grading rule contributed to finding better logs in viewpoint of the volumetric yield and it can reduce the number of rejected lumber by visual grading. However, it could not identify better logs to produce higher-grade products. To find an appropriate log-sorting-method for structural products, log diameter and ultrasonic time of flight (TOF) for the log were considered as factors to affect mechanical performance of resulting products. However, it was found that influence of log diameter on mechanical performance of resulting products was very small. The TOF showed a possibility to sort logs by mechanical performance of resulting products even though a coefficient of correlation was not strong (R = 0.6). In a case study, the log selection based on the ultrasonic TOF of the log increased the yield of the outermost tension lamination (E8 or better grade, KS F 3021) from 2.6% to 12.5% and reduced LTE5 (lower than E5 grade) lamination from 43.6% to 10.3%, compared with the existing KFRI log grading rule.