Science Making A Difference
| Below are FPL's 2010 research highlights, sorted by title.
Listings may be re-sorted by Research Emphasis Area, Title, or ID. Click here for an overview of FPL's historic contributions over the past 100 years. | ||
| Accomplishment | FPL Research Emphasis Area | |
ID: FPL-005  | A percolation model for water and electrical conduction in wood with implications for durability Recently, researchers at the Forest Products Laboratory and University of Wisconsin have developed a new model of electrical conduction in wood that provides a good fit to experimental data, offers insight into the mechanism of conduction, and integrates well with other experiments that probe the st... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-013  | An Innovative Method for Determining Moisture Gradient of Wood Products Changes in moisture content of wood-based composite materials can lead to linear expansion and, more specifically, hygroexpansion. This can cause severe internal stresses resulting in deformities and defects such as warping, surface checks, and honeycomb during the wood drying process. A non-destruc... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-023  | Cellulose Nanocrystals: Novel Templates for the Synthesis of Nanostructures Harvesting the properties of widely available natural biopolymers for the design of novel systems in nanobiotechnology has been largely ignored in favor of other biological molecules, such as proteins, viruses, or DNA. A joint research effort between the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) and the Purd... view » | Nanotechnology |
ID: FPL-001  | Centennial Edition, Wood Handbook - Wood as an Engineering Material The Wood Handbook-Wood as an Engineering Material serves as a primary reference document for a wide variety of users-from the general public through architects and design engineers who use wood in highly engineered structures. view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-021  | Characterizing cellular properties in wood to better understand bulk wood properties A current aim in forest products research is to efficiently modify wood to tailor it for specific end uses, such as hardening softwoods for flooring or softening wood in pretreatments for biorefineries. view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-014  | Effects of Press Sizes on Internal Steam Pressure during Particleboard Hot-Pressing Process Internal steam pressure produced during the hot-pressing cycle in particleboard production is critical to the newly developed bond strength that will determine the overall performance of particleboard. The difference between the accumulation of internal steam pressure for small panels made in the la... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-025  | Elucidating Covalent Bond Formation and Cleavage in Wood Working with a group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Biochemistry, FPL researchers have discovered mechanistic details behind some long-standing theories of wood adhesion and brown-rot fungal decay. Firstly, solution-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-020  | Engineering Standard for Moisture Control in Buildings ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 160-2009, Criteria for Moisture-Control Design Analysis in Buildings, was published in May 2009. This engineering standard was developed over the past 13 years by an international committee chaired by an FPL scientist. The standard embodies a quantitative, performance-based appr... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-010  | Estimation of environmental emissions associated with U.S. production of lumber and wood panel products including harvesting, forest regeneration, transport and manufacturing Life-cycle research on wood products plays a vital role in developing strategies for mitigating climate change. The main driving force behind climate change has been the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. Unlike nonrenewable materials, renewable materials s... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-012  | Evaluation of Various Fire Retardants for Use in Wood Flour/Polyethylene Composites Wood-plastic composites (WPCs) represent a class of materials increasingly used in residential construction and furniture-making. The fire performance of WPCs is not well understood, however, and there is little information regarding the effectiveness of various fire retardants in the public domain.... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-016  | Fabrication Utilization of Recycled Fiber/Agricultural Fiber Panels and Exhibit The Forest Products Laboratory's research using anaerobically digested agricultural waste fibers combined with recycled paper fibers to make structural panels was selected by a prominent design firm for use as the main fabrication material for the Sustainability Pavilion at the Worldwide Food Expo, ... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-030  | Fast Forward' Genetics for Renewable Fuels Researchers at the Forest Products Laboratory used mutagenesis, strain selection and genetic manipulation over a period of seven years to develop improved strains of yeasts that will produce renewable fuel (ethanol) from wood residues. view » | Forest Biorefinery |
ID: FPL-017  | Heat Sterilization of Firewood for Thermal Eradication of Emerald Ash Borer FPL researchers have led a joint research effort with USDA APHIS and state regulatory staff to evaluate various heat treatment options and heating times for ash firewood and help firewood industry to successfully implement the heat treatment process as required by the new USDA phytosanitary regulati... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-009  | History of lumber submissions under ASTM D 1990 since the North American In-Grade testing program The North American In-Grade Testing Program, begun in the mid-1970s, tested more than 70,000 full-size specimens of North American production lumber representative of the total specimen population throughout the geographic range of production. Forest Product Laboratory scientists have conducted a te... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-018  | Identification of economically significant death-watch and spider beetles in Wisconsin Two widely distributed beetle families, the death-watch (Anobiidae) and spider beetles (Ptinidae), include a number of economically significant species which cause damage to wooden materials and/or stored products. Distribution and abundance of several common species are known but the obscure lifecy... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-011  | Improved Composites from Wood Flour and Mixed Plastics In a cooperative project with Louisiana State University, Forest Products Laboratory researchers have used crosslinking technologies, commonly used in the cable coating industry, to optimize the performance of composites of mixed plastics and wood flour. view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-007  | Improving Accelerated Testing of Durable Wood Products Durable wood products such as posts, poles and timbers are expected to resist decay and termite attack for several decades. Testing the durability of new types of wood products is challenging because it is impractical to conduct tests for more than a small fraction of the expected service life. view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-026  | Increasing the Value of Slash by Use in Oriented Strand Board The project takes a closer look at chunkwood processing first developed in 1977 at the Northern Research Station lab in Houghton, MI. Branches and tree tops as small as 2 inch diameter are cut to 5 inch length, debarked, sliced into veneer chips and formed into oriented strand board - a product idea... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-004  | Modeling indoor humidity in homes Indoor humidity levels in a home influence not only occupant comfort and indoor air quality but also the durability of the building, especially in cold climates. Researchers at the Forest Products Laboratory undertook a critical assessment of the literature to determine the reliability of other para... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-003  | Natural fumigants protect wood against termites Forest Products Laboratory researchers discovered that essential oils from some common plants such as dill, rosemary and lemongrass can be used as fumigants to kill termites. view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-019  | North America's pellet sector The U.S. Forest Products Laboratory's nationwide mission to assess the wood sector's status and trends placed this research within its sphere. In collaboration with the Endowment for Forest Communities, through the University of Tennessee, a comprehensive enumeration of all major existing and prospe... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-015  | Particleboard Panels Manufactured from Rice Straws of Different Geometries Faced with worldwide shortages of forest resources, environmental pollution and waste of biological resources resulting from field burning of rice straw and other agriculture residues, there has been a revival of interest in using rice straw and other agriculture residues to produce building materia... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-031  | Performance of Wood Structural Systems in Earthquake Zones FPL scientists were actively involved in field assessments of low-rise structures, particularly wood structures, looking for seismic and tsunami damage in Concepci?n, San Pedro de la Paz, Talcahuano, and Dichato. Presentations were made to Chilean wood industry representatives and government officia... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-008  | Public Access to Actual Data Files for Cone Calorimeter Tests of Wood Products The cone calorimeter test is a fire test used internationally for research and development of new fire retardants and to provide input data to models for predicting the reaction of building materials to fire and the spread of a fire within a building. The primary output is the heat release rate due ... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-002  | Recalculating the Decay Hazard Index Climate index values for estimating decay hazard to wood exposed outdoors above ground, commonly known as Scheffer index values, were calculated for 280 locations in the United States (270 locations in the conterminous United States) using the most current climate data available from the National Cl... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-027  | Scale-up of cellulose nano material production There is considerable research internationally on cellulose nano-materials as reinforcement fibers for high strength composites. A persistent problem has been unavailability of cellulose nano-crystals (CNC) and nano-fibrillated cellulose (NFC), the raw material needed for this research. FPL collabor... view » | Nanotechnology |
ID: FPL-022  | Sol-gel technology to enhance performance properties of wood or wood fiber With support from industry partners, FPL researchers are developing new sol-gel technologies to enhance performance properties of wood or wood fiber. Sol-gel technologies are wet-chemical techniques that are widely used in the fields of materials science and ceramic engineering. view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-024  | Soy-Based Adhesives Provide Wood Composites That Meet California Emission Standards Ashland- Hercules, working cooperatively with the Forest Products Laboratory, have developed these soy adhesives and have commercialized them for interior plywood, engineered wood flooring and particleboard. This technology also allows wood manufacturers to replace adhesives based on fossil fuel by ... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-006  | Termite Eradication: A search for the Holy Grail Regarding Wisconsin termites, laboratory tests were initiated to evaluate transfer of a number of different dusting compounds to un-dusted colony mates with varied results. view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-028  | Water, Air, and Soil Forest fungi perform an essential role in recycling woody plant debris and have many potential applications in biotechnology. In 2009, a Forest Products Laboratory chemist worked for ten months as a Senior Fulbright Awardee at the International Graduate School in Zittau, Germany. The research, condu... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-029  | Wood decay enters new era of genomics research Over the past decade, research collaborations between the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) have resulted in major advances on understanding the fundamental genetics of the fungi responsible for wood decay. Milestones include seminal publica... view » | Nanotechnology |