Early Property Assessment Guides Sawing Decisions

Original Language: French

The Challenge

The timber industry traditionally grades wood after processing into lumber, which means valuable logs may be allocated to inappropriate applications. Assessing the mechanical properties of entire logs before sawing would enable optimal processing decisions and proper allocation for structural applications. However, non-destructive characterization of complete logs presents unique challenges compared to testing processed timber samples.

The Solution

This thesis investigated the use of GrindoSonic for characterizing the stiffness properties of entire wood logs. The research explored how impulse excitation technique could effectively assess structural timber properties at the earliest stage of the supply chain, on unprocessed logs, without damaging the valuable wood material. By measuring resonant frequencies of complete logs, the method enables rapid stiffness assessment that can guide sawing decisions and structural grading before any processing occurs.

Key takeaway: Moving stiffness assessment from processed lumber back to the raw log stage enables optimal sawing decisions and better resource allocation across the entire timber supply chain.

Results

The research demonstrates that knowing mechanical properties of logs before sawing allows optimal processing decisions and proper grading for structural timber applications. This extends IET methodology from processed timber to raw logs, enabling earlier quality assessment in the wood supply chain and better resource allocation throughout the timber industry.