Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

The forest products have provided Canada with great economic wealth, bringing in $30.2 billion in export revenue in 2008. In current wood manufacturing operations, measurement of wood characteristics is essential to ensure that the right fiber is directed to the appropriate manufacturing company at the right time and cost to produce products in demand. Among all the quality-related wood properties, density and moisture content are two of the most important because they affect the efficiency of manufacturing processes. In order to accurately control the product quality, a system able of real time monitoring of these wood properties is needed. Recent research has shown that near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) or magnetic resonance (MR) technologies are promising technologies for monitoring wood properties. This project will build on the research advances made to date and develop operational, affordable and robust systems for real-time monitoring of log density and moisture content (MC) based on NIR spectroscopy, GPR or MR technologies. In parallel, a more fundamental research will be undertaken in order to model the effects of surface and of viewing and illumination conditions on the VIS-NIR spectra and thus on the moisture content and density estimation, to develop a method for deriving wood MC and density from hyperspectral images and to prototype a new NIR transmission device for characterizing wood properties. The research team is multi-disciplinary and consists of leading researchers in wood science and in sensing technologies from University of New Brunswick, University of Toronto, from FPInnovations, and from Nagoya University (Japan). The research will have a direct benefit to Canada by providing novel technologies for process control and value-added optimization in existing wood product manufacturing companies.