In the past, many efforts have been made to improve the mechanical properties of low-density wood species through densification, i.e., the transverse compression of wood. Although densified wood products have been commercially available for many decades (Navi and Sandberg 2012), they re-main as niche products with low annual production volumes, and to this date, success-ful mass-production has not been achieved (Neyses 2019, Jones et al. 2019). One of the main reasons for this has been the reliance on batch-type processes, which limit the achievable process speed and integration into the largely continuous wood-processing chain. As a solution to this obstacle, we propose the use of a belt press, which allows the continuous densification of – in theory – infinitely long wood boards. Such a press has been in-stalled in the Wood Science and Engineering at Luleå University of Technology, functioning as a research and process development plat-form.
Keywords: compression, Scots pine, wood modification
Authors
Alexander Scharf
Luleå University of Technology, Wood Science and Engineering Forskargatan 1, 93177 Skellefteå, Sweden
Dick Sandberg
Lulea University of Technology Forskargatan 1, 93187 Skelleftea, Sweden
Benedikt Neyses
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