• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.38-50
• /
• 1998

Laser cutting tests were conducted to investigate the laser cutting characteristics of solid woods such as 25mm-thick white oak(Quercus acutissima) and maple(Acer mono), and wood-based panels such as 15mm-thick medium density fiberboard and particleboard. Test variables were laser power, cutting speed, grain direction, and moisture content. Specific cutting energy was measured and the qualities of cut surface were estimated in constant laser power. Specific cutting energy of white oak was larger than that of maple, and specific cutting energy of medium density fiberboard was smaller than that of particleboard. For both white oak and maple, specific cutting energy of green wood was smaller than that of air-dried wood because weight loss of moisture evaporation in green wood was larger than that in air-dried wood. In laser-cut surface, wood cells were not deformed and damaged, but in circular saw-cut surface fibers were pushed out and cut, and wood cells were deformed severely. However, mechanical surface roughness of saw-cut surface was smoother than that of laser-cut surface because of the existence of undeformed cell cavity in laser-cut surface.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.40 no.3
• /
• pp.164-176
• /
• 2012

In the present study, rapeseed flour (RSF), which is a by-product from the production of edible oil and biodiesel extracted from rapeseed, was used to develop alternative adhesives for the production of plywood panels. To examine the effects of the enzyme on the adhesive properties and formaldehyde emission of the RSF-based adhesive resins, three enzymes, such as cellulase (CEL), pectinase (PEC) and protease (ALC), were used either separately or together. As a crosslinking agent, PF prepolymers, which were prepared with 1.5, 1.8 and 2.1 mole formaldehyde and 1 mol phenol (1.8-, 2.1- and 2.4-PF), were added into the RSF hydrolyzates. The adhesive resins formulated with CEL- or CEL-PEC-RSF hydrolyzates and 1.8-F/P PF prepolymers exhibited excellent adhesive strengths and formaldehyde emission. The tensile shear strength and formaldehyde emission of the plywood panels bonded with the formulate resins were satisfied with the minimum requirement of the KS standard for ordinary plywood panels (0.6 N/$mm^2$). In addition, formaldehyde emissions of the plywood panels approached to that of E0 specified in the KS standard (0.5 mg/${\ell}$), and even had much better than those of commercial UF glue mixes. Overall, the use of RSF-based adhesive resins for the production of plywood panels might provide durable adhesive properties and an environmentally friendly substitute for petroleum-based adhesive resins. However, further researches - the increase of solid content of RSF-based adhesives for reducing press time and the microscopic observation of plywood specimen for identifying the relationship between tensile shear strength and the penetration of adhesives into wood structure - are required to commercialize the RSF-based adhesives.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 1999

The use of structural wood based panels like plywood, OSB in many applications involves the use of nails, and data on the performance of panel-nail connection are needed for design and comparative purpose. This study was carried out to develop basic information on nail performance(withdrawal, embedding, nailhead push through) with water absorption in plywood and OSB. In withdrawal resistance test, initial stiffness of plywood performed better than OSB in 24hr soaked condition. The soaked condition reduced average nail withdrawal resistance value about 46% (12d mail), 53%(8d nail) in OSB, 17%(12d mail), 24%(8d mail) in plywood. The nail embedding strength of plywood also performed better than that of OSB and retention value(wet strength/dry strength) yielded similar in each nail types. The nail head push through capacity of OSB was higher than that of plywood in dry condition, but equal or lower in soaked condition. Therefore, critical consideration about structural panels is required in moist applications. The average values of nail withdrawal, nail embedding strength and nail head push through resistance of tested materials meet the minimum requirement of various specification and standards.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.174-182
• /
• 2011

Over the last decade, Sick Building Syndrome has become a significant social issue in Korea and many methods have been considered to maintain comfortable indoor air quality. To reduce toxic substances emitted from wood composite products, the source control is an efficient method through the reduction of formaldehyde content by using natural material-based adhesives for composite wood products production. Among alternative materials, soybean protein is considered an appropriate natural material to replace formaldehyde-based resin and many efforts have been made to produce new products, such as soap, shampoo, ink, resin, adhesive and textile through changing the chemical or physical properties of soybean. To process soybeans into these useful products, the beans are dehulled and the oil is removed by crushing at very high pressure or by solvent extraction. For use soybean as an adhesive, it is processed at temperatures below $70^{\circ}C$ to preserve the alkaline solubility of the proteins. In addition, soybean-based adhesive is undergone treatment process to improve mechanical properties using urea, urease inhibitor N-(n-butyl) thiophosphoric triamide and sodium dodecyl sulfate. The modified soybean-based adhesive exhibited sufficient mechanical properties to use as an adhesive for composite wood products. This paper is a review article to discuss the possibilities of soybean-based adhesive for environment-friendly furniture materials.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.18-25
• /
• 2002

Research to discuss the fire performance of materials requires tools for measuring their burning characteristics and validated fire growth models to predict fire behavior of the materials under specific tire scenarios using the measured properties as input for the models. In this study, burning characteristics such as time to ignition, weight loss rate, flame spread, heat release rate, total heat evolved, and effective heat of combustion for four types of wood-based materials were evaluated using the cone calorimeter and inclined panel tests. Time to ignition was affected by not only surface condition and specific gravity of the tested materials but also the type and magnitude of heat source. Results of weight loss rate, measured by inclined panel tests, indicated that heat transfer from the contacted flame used as the heat source into the inner part of the specimen was inversely proportional to specific gravity of material. Flame spread was closely related with ignition time at the near part of burning zone. Under constant and severe external heat flux, there was little difference in weight loss rate and total heat evolved between four types of wood-based panels. More applied heat flux caused by longer ignition time induced a higher first peak value of heat release rate. Burning characteristics data measured in this study can be used effectively as input for fire growth models to predict the fire behavior of materials under specific fire scenarios.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.75-91
• /
• 1997

Laser cutting tests were conducted to investigate the laser cutting characteristics of solid woods such as 25mm-thick white oak(Quercus acutissima) and maple(Acer mono), and wood-based panels such as 15mm-thick medium density fiberboard and particleboard. Test variables were laser power, cutting speed, grain direction, and moisture content. Cutting depths, kerf widths and the maximum cutting speed were measured. Cutting depths were increased as focus of laser beam was moving from above the workpiece to on the surface of workpiece, and also to below the workpiece. Kerf widths were decreased as focus of laser beam was moving from above the workpiece to on the surface of workpiece, but were increased as focus of laser beam was moving from on the surface of workpiece to below the workpiece. Minimum kerf widths were obtained when focus of laser beam was positioned on the surface of workpiece. Cutting depths and kerf widths were decreased with increase in moisture content, and cutting depths and kerf widths of more dense white oak were smaller than those of maple. And also cutting depths and kerf widths of particleboard were smaller than those of medium density fiberboard.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.44 no.6
• /
• pp.872-879
• /
• 2016

Demand of natural interior finishing material has been widely sprayed in nowadays because many weak people as children, pregnant women, and elder people are being struggled with sick house syndrome due to volatile organic compounds such as formaldehyde, toluene, benzene, etc. Our research group developed a no-added formaldehyde adhesive for wood-based panels from mainly rice powder and some additives in the previous study for abating sick house syndrome. Since the rice powder adhesive provides a good source of nutrients with microorganisms, it was suspected a susceptibility of the rice powder adhesive to fungal and sapstain attack. We evaluated anti-sapstain activity of the rice powder adhesives modified by adding wood preservatives. We modified the rice powder adhesive by adding three different types of anti-sapstain preservatives at three different concentrations to assess their anti-sapstin activity. The bonding strengths of the modified rice powder adhesives were still outstanding performance on all samples. Moreover, the plywood manufactured with the modified rice powder adhesive satisfied outdoor use requirement for ordinary plywood (KS F3101, Korean Standard). The results obtained showed that at least 3% of preservative should be added to the rice powder adhesive to obtain effective anti-sapstain activity.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.179-186
• /
• 2011

In an effort to understand the hydrolytic degradation process of cured urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins responsible for the formaldehyde emission of wood-based composite panels, this study analyzed the influence of acid hydrolysis on the morphology of cured UF resins with different formaldehyde/urea (F/U) mole ratios such as 1.6, 1.4, 1.2 and 1.0. Field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was employed to observe both exterior and fracture surfaces on thin films of cured UF resins before and after the etching with hydrochloric acid as a simulation of the hydrolytic degradation process. FE-SEM images showed that the exterior surface of cured UF resin with the F/U mole ratio of 1.0 had spherical structures after the acid hydrolysis while the other cured UF resins were not the case. However, the fracture surface observation showed that all the samples possessed spherical structures in the cured state of UF resins although their occurrence and size decreased as the F/U mole ratio increased. For the first time, we found the spherical structures in cured UF resins of higher F/U mole ratio of 1.4. After the acid hydrolysis, the spherical structures became a much predominant at the fracture surface. These results indicated that the spherical structures in cured UF resinswere much more resistant to the hydrolytic degradation by the acid than amorphous region.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.43 no.5
• /
• pp.672-681
• /
• 2015

As a part of abating the formaldehyde emission of amino resin-bonded wood-based composite panels, this study was conducted to investigate hydrolytic stability of urea-melamine-formaldehyde (UMF) resin depending on various hydrolysis conditions and hardener types. Commercial UMF resin was cured and ground into a powdered form, and then hydrolyzed with hydrochloric acid. After the acid hydrolysis, the concentration of liberated formaldehyde in the hydrolyzed solution and mass loss of the cured UMF resins were determined to compare their hydrolytic stability. The hydrolysis of cured UMF resin increased with an increase in the acid concentration, time, and temperature and with a decrease in the smaller particle size. An optimum hydrolysis condition for the cured UMF resins was determined as $50^{\circ}C$, 90 minutes, 1.0 M hydrochloric acid and $250{\mu}m$ particle size. Hydrolysis of the UMF resin cured with different hardener types showed different degrees of the hydrolytic stability of cured UMF resins with a descending order of aluminum sulfate, ammonium chloride, and ammonium sulfate. The hydrolytic stability also decreased as the addition level of ammonium chloride increased. These results indicated that hardener types and level also had an impact on the hydrolytic stability of cured UMF resins.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.42 no.5
• /
• pp.605-614
• /
• 2014

This study investigated microstructural changes of cured urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins mixed with aqueous rubber latex emulsion after intentional acid etching. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used in order to better understand a hydrolytic degradation process of cured UF resins responsible for the formaldehyde emission from wood-based composite panels. A liquid UF resin with a formaldehyde to urea (F/U) molar ratio 1.0 was mixed with a rubber latex emulsion at three different mixing mass ratios (UF resin to latex = 30:70, 50:50, and 70:30). The rate of curing of the liquid modified UF resins decreased with an increase of the rubber latex proportion as determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurement. Ultrathin sections of modified and cured UF resin films were exposed to hydrochloric acid etching in order to mimic a certain hydrolytic degradation. TEM observation showed spherical particles and various cavities in the cured UF resins after the acid etching, indicating that the acid etching had hydrolytically degraded some part of the cured UF resin by acid hydrolysis, also showing spherical particles of cured UF resin dispersed in the latex matrix. These results suggested that spherical structures of cured UF resin might play an important role in hindering the hydrolysis degradation of cured UF resin.