Shinning a light on treated pine timberFriday 24 May 2013 The Australian building industry relies on pine timbers for house framing and construction, and for regions where termites or borers might be active timbers treated with a preservative to H2 level (i.e. above ground, inside use) are required.A research team from CSIRO, with funding from Forest and Wood Products Australia (FWPA), has demonstrated that Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy can assess the amounts of preservative in H2 treated timber cheaply, quickly and accurately. The researchers measured the NIR response pattern from timber samples with known but different concentrations of preservative to create a calibration chart. They then compared their models with samples from operating mills to see how accurate both the NIR method and the mill assessments actually were. The research took over a year, but the results show NIR can deliver accurate and timely results. Using NIR it takes about 30 seconds for a worker to know the concentrations of preservative at a given depth inside the wood. Having a quick, cheap and accurate assessment method means, in the future, manufacturers will be able to readily adjust their production processes to make them as economically efficient as possible. For more information on this story, check out this month's R&D Works Newsletter
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