Moisture gradients in sawn timber during aggressive kiln drying investigated with X-ray computed tomography

Abstract

Reducing the time for drying sawn timber to a certain moisture level without deteriorating its quality is increasingly important for an economic and energy-efficient industrial timber-drying process and to support the transition to a sustainable society. It is, however, crucial to ensure that the quality of the timber, i.e. the degree of distortion, cracking, discolouration, and moisture variation within and between the pieces in a drying batch, is not compromised. Drying-simulation software tend to be too conservative in drying-rate recommendations, which has been observed in practise particularly for large cross-section timber of Norway spruce. This study investigated the drying rate and checking occurrence of centre-yielded Norway spruce planks when dried with more aggressive schedules than normally used in practise, i.e. using higher dry-bulb temperatures and/or lower relative humidities than recommended in the conventional optimisation programmes used in the sawmill industry in Sweden. The objective was to investigate the possibility to considerably reduce the total drying time without compromising the quality of the dried timber. The quality of the planks was indirectly assessed by estimating their moisture-content distributions, calculating the moisture gradients and monitoring checking. This was achieved with 4D (3D + time) X-ray computed tomography and a recently developed image processing algorithm based on elastic image registration. The key findings in this study suggest that Norway spruce timber can be dried with significantly higher temperatures and lower relative humidities than suggested by simulations, leading to reduced total drying time without inducing checking. This methodology can help to improve the design of drying schedules to reduce drying time and energy consumption while maintaining timber quality at a level accepted by the customers.