Xuelian Zhang

Date of Award

5-2008

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Campus-Only Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Forest Resources

Advisor

Douglas J. Gardner

Second Committee Member

Douglas W. Bousfield

Third Committee Member

Albert Co

Abstract

The overall goal of this dissertation was to improve the resin efficiency in the manufacturing process of wood strand-based composites through controlling the characteristics of resin-adhesive spray to produce a uniform droplet size and narrow size distribution. Current lack of corresponding research on the characteristics of resinadhesive spray for maximum resin efficiency inspired the following research: 1) Comprehensive review of the empirical droplet size and size distribution of resinadhesives in wood composite production; 2) Application of a laser diffraction analyzer to characterize wood resin-adhesive spray; 3) Characterizing the spray pattern and mechanism of spinning disk atomization of wood resin-adhesives; 4) Application of a novel spray method, ultrasonic atomization, to generate wood resin-adhesive spray; 5) Investigation of extensional properties of wood resin-adhesives. The research results indicated that: 1) the laser diffraction analyzer is an effective tool to characterize wood-resin-adhesive spray; 2) wood-resin-adhesives under spinning disk atomization at a flow rate of 100 ml/min and rotation rate between 10,000 rpm and 15,000 rpm experienced ligament formation with an average droplet size between 10 jum to 20 jum and a size distribution mostly around 0 jum to 60 jum; 3) Ultrasonic atomization of wood resin-adhesives has great potential for resin efficiency improvement in industrial applications; 4) the wood-resin-adhesives used in this study showed viscoelastic behavior under extensional flow.

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