Wood processing is an

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

discipline in the

wood industry The wood industry or timber industry (sometimes lumber industry -- when referring mainly to sawed boards) is the industry concerned with forestry, logging, timber trade, and the production of primary forest products and wood products (e.g. furnit ...

comprising the production of

forest product A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or fodder for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in fo ...

s, such as pulp and paper,

construction material This is a list of building materials. Many types of building materials are used in the construction industry to create buildings and structures. These categories of materials and products are used by architects and construction project managers t ...

s, and tall oil.

Paper engineering Paper engineering is a branch of engineering that deals with the usage of physical science (e.g. chemistry and physics) and life sciences (e.g. biology and biochemistry) in conjunction with mathematics as applied to the converting of raw materia ...

is a subfield of wood processing. The major

wood product Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin tha ...

categories are: sawn

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

, wood-based

panel Panel may refer to: Arts and media Visual arts * Panel (comics), a single image in a comic book, comic strip or cartoon; also, a comic strip containing one such image *Panel painting, in art, either one element of a multi-element piece of art ...

wood chips Woodchips are small- to medium-sized pieces of wood formed by cutting or chipping larger pieces of wood such as trees, branches, logging residues, stumps, roots, and wood waste. Woodchips may be used as a biomass solid fuel and are raw materia ...

, paper and paper products and miscellaneous others including poles and

railway sleeper A railroad tie, crosstie (American English), railway tie (Canadian English) or railway sleeper ( Australian and British English) is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties trans ...

s. Forest product processing technologies have undergone extraordinary advances in some of the above categories. Improvements have been achieved in recovery rates,

durability Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. There are several measures of durability in us ...

and protection, greater utilization of

NTFP Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are useful foods, substances, materials and/or commodities obtained from forests other than timber. Harvest ranges from wild collection to farming. They typically include game animals, fur-bearers, nuts, see ...

s such as various grain stalks and

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

, and the development of new products such as reconstituted wood-panels. Progress has not been homogenous in all the forest product utilization categories. Although there is little information available on the subjects of technology acquisition, adaptation and innovation for the forest-based industrial sector, it is clear that

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

ing has been far less affected by the spread of innovations than the manufacturing of panel products. Wood processing produces additives for further processing of timber, wood chips,

cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...

and other prefabricated material.

References

Wood {{Forestry-stub

See also

References