Investigation into the Effects of Roller Pressing on Hardness, Roughness and Elastic Modulus of Wooden Workpieces

Abstract

The paper investigates the effects of roller pressing on the hardness, roughness, and elastic modulus of wooden workpieces. For research purposes, a roller pressing device based on purely mechanical processing was designed and developed. Four different levels of pressing force have been applied to eight different types of wood: cherry, fir, alder, linden, beech, walnut, oak, and ash. The obtained results indicate that the proposed processing method can significantly improve the hardness, elastic modulus, and surface quality of wooden workpieces. The ash sample exhibited the largest relative increase in hardness (175.9%), while the most significant relative increase in the elastic modulus (66.73%) was measured on the linden sample. The largest relative decrease in surface roughness (54.75%) was achieved on the alder sample. For all types of wood except for fir, in which case an increase in pressing force did not produce the desired reduction of roughness, correlation coefficients indicate a strong relationship between the pressing force as an input variable and the elastic modulus, hardness, and roughness as output variables.