College of Forestry

Owic Update: Chris Knowles, Business Oregon and Umpqua Training and Development received funding from the Governor’s Strategic Training Fund to deliver a June educational workshop and product expo at the Convention Center in Portland that will strengthen the relationships between Oregon’s green building/sustainable design cluster and the forest cluster. ▪ OWIC with Jeff Morrell in the lead will hold a one-day workshop in Richardson Hall on March 10th on the topic of stain and mold in lumber.  Registration is capped at 85.  Details are at http://owic.oregonstate.edu. ▪ Contract projects have been pouring in to OWIC since the start of the year—must mean that business is improving?  Projects include: exploring an effective way to bond a certain high-density tropical wood species for exterior exposure, determining bending stiffness and strength of a new thin & lightweight hardwood plywood, evaluating the dimensional stability of fire-killed Douglas-fir timber, helping an entrepreneur develop an innovative product that combines two different renewable materials – wood & cork, preparing to test new fastener systems for wood ceiling panels, and talking with an entrepreneur about international market opportunities.

New Grant: The OSU Venture Fund and Oregon BEST have awarded a commercialization grant to OSU and Corvallis Tool Company (CTC) to adapt wood modification technology for commercial application. Fred Kamke is the PI. This six month project will be conducted in the Green Building Materials Laboratory by student interns Josef Weissensteiner and Darrell Lowe. CTC will develop engineering designs and costing for three machines capable of producing VTC wood (densified wood material).

Mexico ITTO Project: Rebecca Hamner and Ashlee Tibbets recently attended the Las Vegas Market (a furniture trade show) to collect data regarding user perceptions of lesser-known tropical species from southern Mexico.  The project is a joint study with the University of Guadalajara and the International Tropical Timber Organization.  The objective of the project is to determine if there is an interest in the US market for the 11 wood species in products such as veneer and outdoor furniture based on the wood characteristics.  Buyers, designers and industry professionals attending the show provided their perspectives on color, grain and weight of the species. 

KUDOS:Lech Muszyński accepted an invitation to join the team of Associate Editors of the Forest Products Journal. ▪ Lech Muszyński and Ben Sundberg, a University Honors College student double majoring in CE and RM were awarded a fellowship from COF Board of Visitors funds to help forge mentor-protégé bonds between faculty and COF undergraduates. The intent is to improve student retention and aid in their professional and academic development.

Invited Presentations: John Simonsen gave an invited presentation at the ONAMI/EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) workshop held in Charlotte, NC on January 12-13. The title of the talk was “Cellulose nanocrystals for battery separators.” ▪ David Smith attended the Pacific West Biomass conference in Seattle and made a presentation on his WUR-sponsored research on the characteristics of woody biomass fuels derived from forest slash.   Contacts made at the conference led to David being invited to join ISO TC238 which is developing standards for solid biofuels.

Biomass: David Smith, Scott Leavengood and John Sessions participated in a meeting called by State Representative Brad Witt to meet with investors exploring the feasibility of building a biomass energy plant in Oregon using new proprietary technology.  Opportunities and mechanisms for collaboration were discussed, and an invitation was extended to host a larger, interdisciplinary meeting at a later time. ▪ David Smith also participated in meeting jointly organized by ODOE and ODOF to identify information needed to stimulate growth in biomass utilization. The primary focus was on developing tools and data to generate biomass cost curves based on specific location, quantity, and quality criteria.

New Pub: In 2009 a large NSF-funded project culminated in a shake-table test of a six-story wood frame structure.  This test is being used to promote the potential for safe, viable tall wood-frame structures in Oregon and elsewhere in the western US.  Rakesh Gupta was part of this project and is a co-author on a new summary publication: “ Damage Assessment of a Full-Scale, Six-Story, Wood-frame Building Following Tri-Axial Shake Table Tests” by John W. van de Lindt; Rakesh Gupta; Shiling Pei; Kazuki Tachibana; Yasuhiro Araki; Douglas Rammer; Hiroshi Isoda; J. of Performance of Constructed Facilities (ASCE), in-press (2011)