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Pineville (LA) location:
The unique research capabilities of this Unit are derived
from both its personnel and its facilities. The scientific
staff offers more than 70 years of experience in the area
of wood science and technology. Additionally, the technical
support personnel bring more than 130 years of field and laboratory
experience to the table. This broad background allows for
a range of perspectives and skills to be applied to questions
that may be either fundamental or applied in nature.
 The
heart of the Unit lies in the 3,000 square foot "Clear
Span" building. This building contains the larger processing
equipment including the resin spray booth, large hydraulic
press, and fiber disc refiner. An extensive collection of
routine woodworking equipment is also found here, as well
as more unique equipment for making wood flakes and finger-joint
profiles. The Clear Span location also offers a small dry
kiln for a variety of applications, and tools for pulp characterization
and handsheet preparation. According to some, this is where
the real work gets done.
The
research facilities of the Unit include more than 2,000 square
feet of laboratory space for standard chemistry experiments.
Included in these laboratories are specialized equipment for
the synthesis and characterization of adhesive resins,
separation and purification of natural compounds, and
chromatographic analysis (liquid and gas) of molecular
structure. The research laboratories also house specialized
instrumentation that are particularly relevant to the program
including a 300 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer
and a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer for chemical
structure determination, and an atomic force microscope for
surface analysis of materials.
A
listing of analytical equipment is presented in the table
below:
| Chemical
Property Analysis |
- 300
MHz NMR (Bruker) with hetero-nuclear capability, inverse
coupling option, and variable temperature probe
- GC-Mass
Spectrometer (Finigan-MAT) with solid sampling capability
- Fourier-Transform
Infrared Spectrometer (Nicolet) with attenuated total
reflectance, diffuse reflectance, and microbeam sampling
options
- Gas
chromatography (Hewlett-Packard) with flame ionization
and thermal conductivity detectors
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| Mechanical
Property Analysis |
- Riehle
20 kips test maching for large components
- Instron
mechanical testing equipment (2) with numerous testing
jigs and load cells
- Miniature
tensile stage (Polymer Laboratories) with 50 and 100
gram load cells
- Custom
tensile stage and grips for testing single fibers
- Dynamic
mechanical thermal analyzer (Rheometrics, RSA-2) with
3-point bending and tension test geometries, sub-ambient
temperature capability, and variable frequency
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| Physical
Property Analysis |
- Differential
scanning calorimeter (Perkin-Elmer) with sub-ambient
capability
- Micro-dielectric
analyzer (Micromet Instr.) for remote data acquisition
- Atomic
force microscope (Digital Inst.) with force modulation
- Thermo-optical
microscope (Nikon) with image analysis system
- Bauer-McNett
fiber classifier
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Processing Equipment |
-
single-disc fiber refiner
- Large
hydraulic press
- Resin
spray booth (vented)
- Finger-joint
profiler
- Paper
handsheet former
- Large,
high-volume spray dryer
- Single
screw extruder (Brabender)
- Miniature
injection molder with dog-bone and bending molds
- Various
standard woodworking equipment
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| New
Equipment |
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Radial arm and Circular saws
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Planer and Finger jointer
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Hot
Plate Presses
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Belt and Disc sanders
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Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (Bio-Rad)
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HPLC (Perkin Elmer)
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Ocean Optics HR2000CG-UV-NIR High Resolution
Spectrometer
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Bruker Minispec NMS 120 Spectrometer
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Near Infrared Spectrophotometer (ASD) with full range
(300-2500 nm) capabilities
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Athens (GA) location:
A
listing of analytical equipment is presented in the table
below:
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| Mechanical
Property Analysis |
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Universal 120,000 lb lumber testing machine (Baldwin)
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Lumber stress wave time computer (Metriguard)
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| Physical
Property Analysis |
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X-ray tree ring scanning densitometer (Quintek
Measurement Systems, Inc.)
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Processing Equipment |
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36 inch wood band saw (Delta)
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36 inch wood planer (Whitney)
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8 inch wood joiner
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12 inch wood lathe
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18 inch wood straight-line-rip saw
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16 inch wood table saw
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16 inch wood radial arm saw
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26 x 26 inch hot press
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36 x96 inch cold press
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26 inch metal band saw
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14 inch metal horizontal band saw
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8 inch metal lathe
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12 inch metal milling machine
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5 ton overhead crane
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