Timber: Its Nature and Behaviour, Second Edition

Description

Timber remains a dominant and versatile raw material especially in construction, refurbishment, furniture packaging and temporary works. Timber: Its Nature and Behaviour adopts a materials science approach to timber and comprehensively examines the relationship between the performance of timber and its structure. This book explains a wide range of timber's physical and mechanical behaviour (including processing) in terms of its basic structure and its complex interaction with moisture. The performance of timber and panel products is also related to the levels set in new European specifications and with the associated methods of testing. John M. Dinwoodie graduated in Forestry from Aberdeen University, and was subsequently awarded his M.Tech. in Non-Metallic Materials from Brunel University, and both his Ph.D. and D.Sc. in Wood Science subjects from Aberdeen University. He carried out research at the UK Building Research Establishment for a period of 35 years on timber and wood-based panels with a special interest in the rheological behaviour of these materials. For this work he was awarded with a special merit promotion to Senior Principal Scientific Officer. Since his retirement from BRE in 1995, he has been employed as a consultant to BRE to represent the UK in the preparation of European standards for wood-based panels. In 1985 he was awarded the Sir Stuart Mallinson Gold Medal for research on creep in particleboard and was for many years a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society. In 1994 he was appointed an Honorary Professor in the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Wales Bangor, and in the same year was awarded an OBE. He is author, or co-author, of over one hundred and thirty technical papers and author of three text books on wood science and technology.

John M. Dinwoodie carried out research for the UK Building Research Establishment for 35 years, focusing on timber and wood-based panels with a special interest in their rhetological behaviour. Since his retirement from the BRE he has been employed as a consultant to represent the UK in the preparation of European standards for wood-based panels. He was awarded an OBE in 1994, and appointed Honorary Professor in the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Wales Bangor.

"This edition marks a major revision of the text, which explores the material and physical properties of a material so ubiquitious that it is often taken for granted by materials science researchers. Dinwoodie demonstrates the unique and often curious behaviours of this material and purs particular emphasis on the relationship between timber's structure and performance. Chapters cover structure, appearance, movement, flow, and deformations in timber along with numerous other topics. Materials Evaluation, August 2001, Volume 59 Number 8.."