Science Making A Difference
| Below are FPL's 2011 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-045  | America's Historic Covered Timber Bridges Partnering with the Federal Highway Administration and National Park Service, the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) has taken the lead in conducting research efforts aimed at preserving and/or restoring historic covered bridges. Several collaborative studies have been initiated to improve engineering... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-033  | Cellulose Nanocrystals 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-034  | Colony Collapse of Eastern Subterranean Termites Termites are typically eliminated by treating one house at a time. Community-wide termite elimination strategies are being developed using a method called trap, treat and release and dual baiting stations. In this method, termites are lured to cellulose or cardboard baiting stations (trap), dusted w... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-035  | Corrosion of Metals in Wood In the past, gravimetric corrosion data for fasteners exposed to treated wood has been reported as a percent weight loss. Although percent weight loss is a valid measure of corrosion for comparing identical fasteners, it can distort the corrosion performance of fasteners with different geometries an... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-036  | Develop Thermal Verification Guidelines for Firewood Heat Treatment With the support from the US Forest Service Wood Education and Resources Center, Forest Products Laboratory researchers and cooperators at the Un... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-037  | Developing a Fire Model for Homeowner-Sized Plats FPL researchers are developing a fire growth model for homeowner-sized plats. This model will help users make decisions concerning building and landscaping that result in reduced impacts of encroaching wildland fires while still being aesthetically pleasing. Current recommendations of 200 feet of ve... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-038  | Developing Tools to Assess Mechanical Properties of Wood Cell Walls Wood and wood-based composites have multiple levels of organization that are distinguished by the size of the components within the level. The properties at each level derive from the properties of the smaller components in the lower levels of organization. To better understand the bulk mechanical p... view » | Nanotechnology Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-039  | Durable Wood Product Evaluations The development of improved durable wood products involves years of testing to ensure long-term durability. The most rigorous and meaningful evaluations place test specimens (stakes) in soil contact in humid climates that may require many years to yield meaningful results. Recently researchers have ... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-040  | Elucidating Covalent Bond Formation and Cleavage in Wood Understanding the chemical changes of lignocellulosic wood polymers subjected to different chemical and biological processes is difficult. The common practice of isolating cell wall components for individual analyses is time consuming and can alter the original structure of lignocellulosic polymers ... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization Forest Biorefinery Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-041  | Engineering and Economic Modeling of Biofuels Production Biomass, including overstocked and dead wood biomass from forestlands, can be used to produce energy that can directly replace fossil fuels and liquid fuels from food crops, thus simultaneously improving the nation's energy balance, food security, and the health of the nation's forests. One way to a... view » | Forest Biorefinery |
ID: FPL-042  | Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Building Material Recovery and Reuse The green building and sustainable construction movement is growing, and building professionals (including architects, material specifiers, contractors and end users) are increasingly interested in working to reduce environmental impacts from the buildings they create or live in. Reusing recovered b... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-043  | Heat Treating Wooden Ammunition Pallets for Invasive Species Working with the cooperators at the Department of Defense, Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center; Forest Products Laboratory researchers have initiated a series of studies to investigate the causes of pallet degradation associated with heat treatments and to develop optimized heat tr... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization |
ID: FPL-044  | High Performance Nano-Cellulose Composites The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) has been working for three years on producing cellulose nanocrystals and the strongest and optically clearest versions of cellulose nano-fibrils. In 2009, FPL was approached by the Army Research Laboratory to help with a project producing optically clear composit... view » | Nanotechnology Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-046  | Integrating the Production of Nanofibrillated Cellulose and Biofuels FPL researchers have demonstrated a method of integrating the production of cellulose nanofibers and biofuels. When converting woody biomass to biofuel, one challenge is the recalcitrance of plant biomass, or the inability to efficiently convert cellulose to glucose. Significant past research effort... view » | Forest Biorefinery Nanotechnology |
ID: FPL-047  | Labeling Wood Products Based on Environmental Impacts Transparent and credible environmental labeling of products is vital for a sustainable future. To aid in developing a sustainable future, evaluating products for their environmental impact using life cycle assessment (LCA) has become a growing research area. LCA, a science-based methodology, examine... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-048  | Lumen Filling and Sol-Gel Reinforcement of the Wood Cell Wall Although wood remains the building material of choice in residential construction, it also has poor durability and dimensional instability. For above-ground exterior applications such as deck flooring, important properties are hardness and weathering resistance. To improve these properties, research... view » | Advanced Structures Nanotechnology |
ID: FPL-049  | Moisture Control in Crawl Spaces in Louisiana In flood-prone areas, elevating the floor system of a building above the anticipated flood level can significantly limit the extent of property damage associated with flooding. In hot and humid climates, such as the Gulf Coast region, homes have long been constructed with raised floors on crawl spac... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-050  | Nonresidential Building Construction in the United States, 2008 Nonresidential construction is an important part of U.S. construction markets, and a major market for wood products. This was especially true in 2008. As U.S. housing markets slipped to record low levels of activity, nonresidential construction climbed to unprecedented levels. In 2008 the total valu... view » | Advanced Structures |
ID: FPL-051  | Pretreating Wood Chips for Manufacturing Medium Density Fiberboard The concept of value prior to pulping (extracting components from wood before it is pulped for production of chemical and liquid fuel products) has been proposed in the pulp and paper sciences because of renewed interest in cellulosic biofuel production. FPL researchers evaluated the effect of oxali... view » | Advanced Composites Forest Biorefinery |
ID: FPL-052  | Producing Value-Added Composite Panels from Aspen Slash Wood The disposal of forest thinning residue is a concern when looking at sustainable forest management. FPL researchers investigated the technical possibility of utilizing aspen logging slash wood with diameters ranging from 50-76 mm for flakeboard production. Influences of weight ratio between slash wo... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-053  | Rice Straw Particleboard Particleboards are widely used for construction, furniture, and interior decoration. The primary material used in the particleboard panel industry is wood, but there has recently been a revival of interest in using agriculture residues to produce particleboards and other composite panels due to comp... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-054  | Softening of Biomass and Its Effect on Fuel Pellet Production Biomass such as torrefied wood or wheat straw are of increasing interest as fuel but are difficult to pelletize. Torrefaction is a thermo-chemical conversion process for biomass that is of interest as a pretreatment prior to producing fuel pellets. The resulting pellets are resistant to moisture upt... view » | Woody Biomass Utilization Forest Biorefinery |
ID: FPL-055  | Soy-Based Adhesives for Wood Products California Air Resources has implemented new standards that set lower acceptable formaldehyde emission levels for products sold in California than those established by the current voluntary standards in the United States. Soy adhesives are used to make interior (decorative) plywood, particleboard, a... view » | Advanced Composites |
ID: FPL-056  | Technology Transfer in Action Fundamental and applied research is being been successfully transferred to two industrial partners. The two start-up companies are developing panel products that use technology developed at FPL. This year there have been significant consultations to help move these two companies closer to commercial... view » | Advanced Composites |