TR-1 Final project technical report Technology to support decision-making in hardwood timber drying

This is the final technical report for the National Institute for Forest Products Innovation’s (NIPFI) project: NT013 / NIF077 Sensing technology and digital tools to support decision-making in hardwood timber drying.

The quality of the hardwood drying strongly influences the profitability of milling. Timber boards dried without induced drying degrade can be sold at a premium as differentiated appearance products for architectural applications.

 However, material with the features of drying degrade such as checks and splits is not accepted in the appearance product market and must compete against commodity softwoods in structural and industrial markets, where the price received may not cover log procurement and processing costs. The outcome of avoidable drying degrade for the producer is the combined loss of the product’s market value and the unavoidable burden of high production cost.

While critical to production, few tools currently exist to assist mill and yard managers in their day-to-day drying management decisions. However, the reduced cost of sensors, data management and processing techniques, and the increased value of quality hardwood creates an opportunity for a sensing-based applications that allow yard managers to monitor the timber’s drying behaviour confidently, compare relative drying conditions at different yard locations, model long-term drying and yard performance given known and projected climatic conditions, and control day-to-day yard management for optimal production.

This project aimed to develop and validate a timber drying technology suite with an accompanying decision-making support tool, the Hardwood Improved Air Drying (HI AirDry) application for higher value product recovery across the wider hardwood Industry. It focuses on improving the connection between hardwood air drying and the recovery of product value from processed logs.

This is the second of two technical reports for this project. The first report TR-S1 provides a summary of the project and its findings while this technical report TR-1 details the methodology and results of the application’s development and validation.