Experimental determination of the compression resistance of differently shaped wood particles as influencing parameter on wood-reduced particleboard manufacturing

The price for industrial wood and, thus, particles for the manufacture of particleboard has been rising in the past and will be a topic of current interest in the future as economic growth is targeted at limited resources. One of the strategies to overcome this development is to reduce the amount of wood used for panel production. However, a simple reduction in the amount of wood used for panel manufacture leads to panels of lower density and, consequently, reduced properties. One approach to solving this problem is to re-engineer the particle mat structure to improve the panels’ density profile and, thus, meet required panel properties and at the same time lower board densities. As the particles’ compressibility is one of the main influencing parameters for density profile formation, it is the intention of this study to use a previously developed measurement method to give compression resistances of particles of various shapes and dimensions. It was found that the bulk density alone is not decisive for the particles’ compression resistance. The compression resistance derived from the change of particle shape is lower than that derived from wood substance compression. The compression resistance of large-sized particles was found to be higher than that of small-sized particles. It was concluded that a targeted combination of face and core layer particles improves the panels’ density profile.