Efeito da retificação térmica nas propriedades físico-mecânicas e biológica das madeiras de Pinus taeda e Eucalyptus grandis

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of thermal treatment technique, used in two treatment conditions: treated wood in an autoclave and after conditioning, subject to the treatment under electric heater (combination), and treated wood by using only electric kiln (oven) on mechanical, hygroscopic and biological properties of Pinus taeda L. and Eucalyptus grandis W. Hill ex Maiden woods, comparing them with the results obtained for the untreated wood. For that three trees with 25 years, were deployed for each species from which it drew the first two logs for making the samples used in the evaluations. In the combination treatment these parts were subjected to thermo treatment by autoclaving at 130°C/ ± 3°C and pressure of 2 kgf/ cm² for 3 hours and after a conditioning period, subjected to electric heat in an oven at 160°C/ ± 1°C for the same period, already parts for just treatment in oven were exposed the last condition. The physical properties consisted in the evaluation of weight loss and specific weight assigned to treatment, equilibrium moisture content, rate of water absorption, effectiveness of water repellency, anti swelling efficiency, tangential, radial, and volumetric swelling and coefficient of anisotropy, the mechanical properties consisted in evaluating the modulus of elasticity and rupture in bending, maximum resistance to compression parallel, Janka hardness, impact resistance, and finally to the biological was employed accelerated decay test in the laboratory using white rot fungi and brown. The effect of heat treatment employed in the two methodologies resulted in different effects than expected with regard to the mechanical and biological. The results indicated that heat treatments used were effective in reducing the hygroscopicity and increased dimensional stability of both species, the best results for the combination method. To provide the mechanical properties of different effects, reaching an increase of resistance to certain properties and for durability of biological parts, treatments favored decay fungi employees, more pronounced effect for the combined method.