I deeply scan timber to reduce wasting this precious resource

"Before I went into wood science, I worked with steel and aluminium components in the automotive industry. But metals are boring compared with living materials. Wood has character; no two logs are alike. I work with computed tomography (CT) scanning to study the mechanical properties of wood so that we can locate regions of high quality material and use each tree to its full potential."

"Sawmills that can afford CT scanners usually check logs to avoid certain knot patterns, but my goal is to be able to predict the features of timber beyond just the knots. In our laboratory in Skellefteå, Sweden, I use a machine that looks like a hospital scanner. It's actually a Microtec Mito - an industrial CT machine optimized for logs - which has much higher radiation levels than hospital scanners do."

"This model has been used to scan apples in the food industry, but isn't yet used in sawmills. It has an X-ray tube and a detector that rotate around a ring structure, inside which we strap our samples. Instead of scanning a patient (or an apple), we're scanning six-metre-long logs or tiny wood samples just a few centimetres in size. The resolution we're using is 0.3 millimetres cubed; it's like being a surgeon."

Computed tomography (CT) scanning is applied to study mechanical properties of wood and to locate regions of high-quality material to optimize each tree's use. Sawmills that can afford CT typically screen logs for certain knot patterns; the goal is to predict timber features beyond knots. A Microtec Mito industrial CT scanner in a Skellefteå laboratory is optimized for logs and operates at higher radiation levels than hospital scanners. The machine's X-ray tube and rotating detector image samples from tiny cuttings to six-metre logs. Scanning resolution is 0.3 millimetres cubed, enabling fine-scale inspection of wood structure.

Read at Nature