Sustainable Development Institute

Current Projects:

The Use of Nondestructive Evaluation Technologies to Assess Standing Timber Quality

The Center for First American Forestlands, a division of CMN’s Sustainable development Institute, is working on a collaborative project with the University of Minnesota Duluth (NRRI) and the US Forest Service (FPL) on an acoustic technology project.  Background is as follows:

1.) Acoustic technology has now advanced to the 8^th or 9^th generation of equipment used to measure variation in the velocity of sound through various media.

2.) These technologies have been well established material evaluation tools over the past several decades, particularly with regard to wood.

3.) Since the use of sound waves to test wood properties has no lasting effect, it is referred to as Nondestructive Evaluation.

4.) Recent research developments and advancements on acoustic sensing technology offer further opportunities to evaluate raw wood materials for general wood quality and intrinsic wood properties.

5.) These advancements show promise to provide strategic information that could be used as the basis of predicting the properties of wood in standing tree form using correlative data based on the relationship between acoustic velocity and wood quality.

6.) This relationship is based on solid physics and is reproducible across a broad spectrum of wood species.

7.) The major predictive factor of this study is to determine if the known relationships produce information that can be interpreted as showing a high probability of defect in tree form.

8.) While substantial studies exist and are ongoing in the evaluation of this technology on various types of softwoods and hybrid species around the world, little if any data exist on natural hardwoods.

9.) If this technology shows the same promise in predictive capability in natural hardwoods, the economic potential could be considerable, especially in relation to the treatment approach of single tree selection using a 15 year cutting rotation.

10.) As a result, CMN and MTE have partnered with the FPL and NRRI to expand this research on a trial basis into the Menominee forest.

11.) These assessments will evaluate a significant sample population of cross section “cookies”, logs, and standing trees focusing primarily on Sugar Maple and Eastern White Pine.

12.) These data both within subsets and between species will be compared to existing data to determine if correlations support previous conclusions in either or both species.

The goal of this project will be to provide advancements and refinements of acoustic assessment that will lead toward improvements in managing wood quality, assessing forest value, and ensuring efficient use of woody biomass.

 

Archives:

USDA Forest Service Partnership Summary Documents

• USDA Forest Service & College of Menominee Nation Partnership Brochure (.pdf)

• USDA Forest Service & College of Menominee Nation Partnership Fact Sheet (.pdf)

• College of Menominee Nation & USDA Forest Service Partnership Summary (.htm)

• College of Menominee Nation & USDA Forest Service Partnership Summary (.pdf)