Engineering Laboratory as 

 members. Its purpose is to support 

 expanded research and continuing 

 education in harvesting. An early 

 research result was the refining of 

 a model initially developed 

 elsewhere under American 

 Pulpwood Association auspices for 

 evaluating new or modified 

 equipment in terms of production 

 and production-cost rates. This 

 model can also be used for ranking 

 combinations of equipment or 

 systems for harvesting a particular 

 stand, or for ranking given systems 

 for harvesting a variety of stands. 

 Twenty pulp and paper companies 

 now use the computerized model 

 to advise their producers or 

 contractors on equipment selection 

 and system balancing. Equipment 

 manufacturers use it to evaluate 

 prototype machines (Walbridge, 

 personal communication). 



Forest Products — In forest 

 products, a very considerable 

 amount of research has been 

 designed to improve kiln drying. 

 The Mississippi State University 

 Forest Products Utilization 

 Laboratory developed a high- 

 temperature system for drying 

 heavy timbers, poles, and piling 

 before preservatives are applied 

 that cut drying times from 5 days 

 to 2. This more than doubled the 

 capacity of kiln systems in use (W. 

 Thompson, personal 

 communication). At the University 

 of Tennessee, research has reached 

 the pilot-testing stage for a 

 computerized control system of 



kiln operation to minimize degrade 

 of oak lumber (Schneider, personal 

 communication). VPI and SU has 

 carried through the prototype-test 

 stage a computer-controlled 

 automated kiln operation system 

 that monitors temperature drop 

 across the charge and continually 

 adjusts the kiln schedule. It saved 

 $200,000 per year in degrade 

 reduction for an investment of 

 $100,000 (Ifju, personal 

 communication). 



In the 1960's and 1970s, North 

 Carolina State was involved in 

 lumber drying and yield 

 optimization research to improve 

 raw material use by the southern 

 furniture industry. This endeavor 

 included the development of 

 furniture-cutting yield-prediction 

 tables and a prototype machine for 

 maximizing the yield of such 

 cuttings from lumber used. 

 Cooperating companies have 

 reported savings of 5 percent to 20 

 percent in lumber requirements. A 

 10-percent saving industrywide 

 would provide a combined raw 

 material cost reduction of $84 

 million annually (North Carolina 

 State 1985 unpubl.). 



In other areas, the Mississippi 

 State Laboratory, in cooperation 

 with the American Plywood 

 Association, investigated the use of 

 soft hardwoods such as yellow- 

 poplar, black gum, and red maple 

 as veneers in structural grade 

 plywood. Scientists found that any 

 combination of these species, or 



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