Working Party 5.04.06
Wood drying

Wood drying concerns the process of removing moisture from wood with the purpose of enhancing its mechanical properties, resistance to biological degradation and stability under changing environmental conditions. The objective of the unit is to maintain an active international area of research in wood drying as well as serve as a platform to discuss about current problems and opportunities for processing the many different commercial wood species available around the world.

STATE OF KNOWLEDGE

Lumber drying is a relatively mature industrial process, thus improving technologies and drying strategies, as well as revisiting the process for exotic and difficult-to-dry wood species, are current subjects of this research area. Below are examples of researchers around the world working actively in the area of wood drying:

• Prof. J.B. Ressel, at the Mechanical Wood Technology, University of Hamburg, in Germany.
• Prof. Djeison Cesar Batista, at the Departamento de Ciências Florestais e da Madeira, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, in Brazil.
• Prof. Helmuth Josef Resch, at the Institute of Wood Science and Technology, University of Natural Resources and Life sciences, in Austria.
• Prof. Alfred Teischinger, at the Universität für Bodenkultur, Institut für Holztechnologie und nachwachsende Rohstoffe, in Austria.
• Tomy Listyanto, at the Department of Forest Product Technology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, in Indonesia.
• Steve Riley, at the Wood Processing and Products SCION, in New Zealand.
• Shusheng Pang, at the Wood Technology Research Centre, University of Canterbury, in New Zealand
• Prof. Ruben A. Ananias, at the Universidad del Bio-bio, in Chile.
• Vijaya Raghavan, at the Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, in Québec.
• Zhangjing Chen, at Virginia Tech., in USA.
• Dr. Johannes Welling, at the Thuenen-Institute of Wood Research, in Germany.