Timber processing involves multiple interdisciplinary fields.
Timber possesses advantages such as light weight, high strength-to-weight ratio, good elasticity, impact resistance, rich and beautiful grain and color, and ease of processing, making it an important raw material since ancient times.
Timber processing also plays a vital role in the national economy due to its low energy consumption, low pollution, and renewable resources.
Currently, products have evolved from primary processed logs such as utility poles, pit props, railway sleepers, and various sawn timber, to reprocessed timber products such as building components, furniture, vehicles, ships, stationery, and packaging containers, and even to re-processed wood products such as various engineered wood products and glued laminated timber, thus forming an independent industrial system for the timber industry.
Timber processing uses timber as raw material and primarily employs mechanical or chemical methods to process it, retaining the basic characteristics of timber in the finished product. In the forestry industry, timber processing and forest product chemical processing are both downstream industries of forest harvesting and transportation, and are important sectors for the comprehensive utilization of timber resources.
Wood technology is the discipline that studies wood processing techniques. Based on wood science, it applies theories and methods from physics, chemistry, biology, mechanical engineering, and thermodynamics, making it a comprehensive interdisciplinary field.
Classification of Wood: Currently, the wood used in design is mainly divided into engineered wood products and natural wood. Commonly used engineered wood products include blockboard, plywood, veneer panels, fiberboard, particleboard, polycarbonate board, birchwood, fire-resistant board (plastic laminate), and paper veneer panels.
Because natural wood inevitably has various defects during its growth, and wood processing generates a large amount of waste, engineered wood products made from wood and other plant scraps and fibers have been widely promoted and applied to improve wood utilization and product quality.
Commonly used natural woods include ash, elm, lauan, camphor, linden, birch, maple, teak, beech, cherry, rosewood, cypress, yew, red pine, oak, Amur cork tree, walnut, Michelia champaca, padauk, mahogany, neem, toon, and jujube.
Wood Processing
Wood processing techniques mainly include basic processing techniques such as wood cutting, wood drying, wood gluing, and wood surface decoration, as well as functional treatment techniques such as wood protection and wood modification. Here, we will mainly introduce several basic wood processing techniques.
Wood cutting can be divided into three forms: ① The workpiece is cut away with a relatively large layer of chips, leaving a semi-finished product or a finished product, such as planing and turning;
② The chips themselves are the finished product, such as veneer rotary cutting and planing; ③ Both the chips and the remaining workpiece are finished products, such as milling used in chipping.
