In any form of wood treatment – preservatives, fire retardants or wood modification – the uptake of treatment agents is a limiting factor for performance of the finished product. Mechanical incision is widely used to treat products for demanding applications such as railway sleepers, and has been increasingly used for fencing applications in the UK in recent years. Laser incision offers a similar increase in fluid uptake and distribution within the wood, and reduces tool wear, and down-time for knife-sharpening or blade replacement (Morris et al. 1994, Wang et al. 2013). The use of lasers reduces splitting and crushing in the vicinity of the holes, but may lead to localised darkening or formation of heat affected zone at the hole margin. Another significant benefit is the ability to drill small holes rather than form long slits in the timber, and offers the opportunity to control of the depth of these holes (Nath et al. 2020a). While a few studies have reported increased fluid uptake in laser incised timbers (Islam et al. 2009, Wang et al. 2013) further information is required to better address the wide range of available commercially important species and differences in their wood anatomy (Spear et al. 2018, Nath et al. 2020b). This paper reports investigations into uptake and distribution of fluids in laser-incised wood samples of different dimensions.
Keywords: laser incision, timber treatment, permeability
Authors
Morwenna Spear
Chris Miles
Elen Williams
Graham Ormondroyd
The BioComposites Centre, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, UK
Paul Mason
Geraint Williams
Millennium Lasers, Llandarcy, Neath, Wales, UK
Andy Pitman
Roger Bailey
Tom Theobald
Lignia Wood Company Ltd, Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK
Subhasisa Nath
David Waugh
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Automotive Engineering, Coventry University, Coventry, UK
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