TR-S1 Final project summary report: Technology to support decision-making in hardwood timber drying

This is the final summary 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.

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, that can enable higher value product recovery across the wider hardwood Industry. The project focused on improving the connection between hardwood air drying and the recovery of product value from processed logs.

The HI AirDry application was developed during the project and is now operational on a pilot scale on a Nectar research server. Its general configuration is shown in Figure 1. The application regularly generates and stores estimates of the moisture content (MC) and maximum drying stress level in boards within individual racks at recorded positions within a drying yard and presents this information to drying managers through an online interface. Currently, estimates are generated daily.