FES342

Composite materials:
 Composites are considered to be compositions of materials (woody or non-wood fibrous
rice or wheat straw, jute, cotton, bamboo etc.)
 Constituents retain their entities in the composite in a macro scale
 These do not dissolve or merge into each other completely but do act in concert
 Materials may be wood or non-wood fibrous (rice or wheat straw, jute, cotton, bamboo
etc.)

Classification:
 Fibrous: composed of fibres of wood & non-woody fibrous, like Fibre boards- hard
board, paper board etc.
 Lamina: composed of layers of wood (with adhesives), like Plywood, laminated wood
etc.
 Particulate: composed of particles of wood & non-woody materials, like Particle or chip
board etc.

Advantages of composites:
 Overcomes many weakness of solid wood
 Make useful products out of wastes, small piece of wood & inferior species (complete
utilization of raw materials)
 Characteristics defects (knots, spiral grain) be eliminated or scattered
 Heating, chemical additives etc. carried out to improve physical & mechanical properties
 Can be made in large dimensions
 Agricultural residues (grass, bamboos, leaves) are manufactured into composite (end-
uses)

Plywood:
A type of strong thin wooden board consisting of two or more layers glued and pressed together
with the direction of the grain alternating at right angles (90°)
 Veneer plywood: all the plies are made of veneers (a thin decorative covering of fine
wood)up to 7 mm thick oriented parallel
 Core plywood: having a core (the central or most important part of something)
 Wood core plywood: having a core of solid wood or veneers, like Battenboard,
Blockboard, Laminboard.
 Cellular plywood: core consists of cellular construction
 Composite plywood: core made of materials other than solid wood or veneers.

Advantages:
 Dimensional stability (shrinking, swelling & movement)
 Strength equalization & enhancement (cross banded nature implies higher strength to
two cross directions)

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 Balanced construction (flat plywood panels made with an odd number of plies with
matching plies on each side to balance)

Manufacture of plywood:
Raw materials: veneer (relatively large, thin sheets of wood produced by sawing, slicing or
peeling) & adhesive or glue

 Preparation of green veneer:

 Log selection and storage:

• Log should be straight, cylindrical & defect free
• Stored in log ponds
• Two-man chain saws used to cut logs then it’s called bolts

 Pre-treatments of bolts & flitches:

• Bolts are peeled better when heated, boiling water tanks or steaming chamber
• Brick-cement, concrete or wood tanks equipped with steam coil for heating
• Heating softens texture & makes pliable
• Temperature & time of heating depend on species, diameter & moisture content of bolts

 Veneer cutting:
o Rotary-cutting or peeling of veneer
• After pre-treatment bolts are debarked & conveyed to the veneer lathe (a machine for
shaping wood, metal, or other material by means of a rotating drive that turns the piece
being worked on against changeable cutting tools)
• A bolt is centred & dogged between two chucks on the veneer lathe
• For maintaining quality the most important parts are the knife & the nosebar fixed to the
carriage
• The lathe knife extending across the length of the lathe is brought against the bolt
• The nosebar presses against the bolt & compresses the wood just ahead of the knife
• As the bolt revolves veneer is cut by the knife, i.e. peeled off

o Slicing of veneer
• Two types of slicers horizontal & vertical (when logs are smaller) slicers are used
• In the horizontal slicer, the flitch is dogged to the carriage & a heavy knife moves &
slices a thin sheet of veneer
• In the vertical slicer, the knife remains stationary & the flitch is moved downward onto
the knife & a sheet of veneer is sliced

 Veneer handling & green clipping

• After rotary-cutting veneer is transported by hand pulling on a table, by reeling or
mechanical tray system

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• The veneer is clipped to size & defects are cut off by veneer clipper, process is called
green clipping

 Veneer drying
• Drying of veneer carried out in heated sheds, dry kilns, hot-plate dryers, roller dryers,
vacuum drying etc.
• In Bangladesh, drying generally done under the sun in open fields
• In commercial purpose sometimes in multi-tier high temperature automatic veneer dryers
(veneer moves continuously on rolls/belts)

 Jointing & splicing of dry veneer

• Sliced veneers are glued together along the length to make wider veneers
• Edges are cut straight & parallel by a machine called veneer jointer
• After jointing the veneer is spliced either with a taper or tapeless splicer

 Mixing & spreading of adhesive

• While mixing of adhesive instruction of manufacturer should be followed carefully
• A glue spreader is used to apply the prepared adhesive to veneer
• Glue coated veneers are allowed assembly time or period (interval between spreading of
adhesive & the application of pressure)

 Pressing of plywood
• Assembled veneers are put under pressure for ensuring proper alignment of component &
intimate contact between the wood & glue
• Pressing at room temperature: cold pressing
• Pressing at elevated temperature : hot pressing

 Conditioning & finishing

 Conditioning
• Cold pressed plywood are further dried by placing on stickers after these come off the
press & put into a kiln or left at room conditions for final drying
• Hot pressed plywood loose considerable moisture (cause of checking/warping), good to
practice is to add moisture by sprinkling or spraying water immediately
 Trimming & sanding
• Trimming done by ripping and cut-off saws
• Trimmed panels are sanded by various types of drum sanders or belt sanders machine
(smoothing surface)
Storage:
• Solid ground
• Solid cover top of each pile protects moisture

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