THESIS DEFENSE BY BENOIT BESSEAU

Summary 

One of the major challenges facing the hardwood industry, in order to meet the sharp increase in demand for wood in construction, is the efficient transformation of secondary-quality resources into innovative and competitive products. This thesis contributes to the development of solutions to meet this challenge, first by providing knowledge on the technology for measuring the orientation of fibers (ODF) in sawn timber using a laser point, and then by proposing original applications made possible by a scanner that measures ODF. After demonstrating that these measurements can be performed on fresh, freshly sawn oak, the deformations during drying of a sawn timber were modeled based on this FOG data. The use of ODF data has also proved relevant for characterizing the mechanical strength of oak finger-jointed laminated timber and for the development of quality control standards for finger-jointed laminated timber. These results have also proved useful for optimizing the cutting of sawn timber into pieces specifically intended for finger-jointing. 

Keywords 

Wood; oak; grain orientation; drying; finger jointing 

Members of the jury  

• Rapporteurs 

Florent EYMA, University Professor, Clément ADER Institute, Tarbes University Institute of Technology 

Vincent PLACET, Research Engineer (HDR), FEMTO-ST Institute, University of Franche-Comté 

• Examiners 

Laurent BLÉRON, University Professor, LERMAB, ENSTIB, University of Lorraine 

Evelyne TOUSSAINT, University Professor, Pascal Institute, Clermont Auvergne University 

Robert COLLET, Associate Professor (HDR), Arts et Métiers thesis supervisor) 

Guillaume POT, Senior Lecturer, Arts et Métiers co-supervisor) 

• Guests 

Thibault CHASTAGNIER, Engineer,Ducerf Group 

Jean-Denis LANVIN, Ph.D., Research Engineer,FCBA Technology Institute 

Practical information

Arts et Métiers Campus Arts et Métiers Cluny
Defense Tuesday, December 7, 2021 - 2:00 p.m.

Image source: copyright Ducerf Group