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Solar drying of timber in Harbin, China

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Abstract

The variation in seasonal conditions causes an impact on the wood–water relations and dimensional stability like shrinkage and swelling with solar drying technology, leading to discrepancies in drying qualities. To address this processing problem, we studied the pattern of drying kinetics and dimensional changes in four seasons and Northeast China. The experimental analysis shows that the Page, the Aghbashlo et al., the two-term exponential, and the Weibull models may be applied to emulate solar drying kinetics during different seasons of poplar timber. The results also show that the diffusion coefficients fall below the range of 6.01 × 10–11 to 1.52 × 10–9 m2/s, the activation energy mean is 32.74 kJ mol−1, and the R2 is 0.84 and the wood dimensional changes during the drying are in descending order of summer, spring, winter, and fall. Conclusively, solar timber drying is seasonally affected, and related studies are needed to provide a theoretical basis to develop the numerical modeling, and a thermo-mass-mechanical multi-physics coupled model for the seasonality of solar drying. This research will eventually provide references for improving the application of solar drying technology in different regions of the world, such as the development of heat storage media in different seasons, the upgrade of drying equipment, and the standardization of solar intermittent drying schedules.

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Acknowledgements

The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32071686), Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (LH2022060), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (572022AW40), the Innovation Foundation for Doctoral Program of Forestry Engineering of Northeast Forestry University (LYGC 202102), China Scholarship Council funding financially supported this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Material Science and Engineering, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Xiang Chi, Zhipeng Zhu, Xiaoxue Song, Zechun Ren & Wanli Cheng

  2. Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Xiang Chi, Chenghui Wu, Yaohui Liu & Stavros Avramidis

  3. Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Bio-Based Material Science and Technology, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Guangping Han

Authors
  1. Xiang Chi
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  2. Chenghui Wu
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  3. Yaohui Liu
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  4. Zhipeng Zhu
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  5. Xiaoxue Song
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  6. Zechun Ren
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  7. Guangping Han
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  8. Wanli Cheng
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  9. Stavros Avramidis
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Contributions

XC was involved in formal analysis, conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, visualization, writing—original draft, funding acquisition, project administration, supervision. WC and GH helped in project administration, supervision. SA contributed to writing—review and editing, conceptualization, supervision. YL contributed to writing and editing. CW was involved in resources. ZZ and XS helped in resources, validation. ZR contributed to investigation, visualization.

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Correspondence to Wanli Cheng or Stavros Avramidis.

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Chi, X., Wu, C., Liu, Y. et al. Solar drying of timber in Harbin, China. Wood Sci Technol 58, 195–212 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00226-023-01517-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00226-023-01517-y

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