The improvement in physical and static bending properties of woven oil palm plywood

• Main Authors: Hamid, Norul Hisham, Yazid, Mohd Fitri, David Hale, Micheal
• Format: Article
• Published: Science and Engineering Publishing Company 2014
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35725/; http://dpi-journals.com/index.php/IJMSCI/article/view/941

The physical and static bending properties of woven oil palm plywood pre-treated with low molecular weight of phenol formaldehyde (LMWPF) were investigated using MS standard 1787: Part 6 and 10. The oil palm veneers were cut into three different split widths of 15, 20 and 25 mm; and manually woven into veneer sized of 40 cm2. The plywoods were fabricated into three different matrix layers of Type 1 (all three layer contained woven veneers), Type 2 (only core layer contained woven veneer) and Type 3 (face and back layers contained woven veneer). All plywood were made using a urea formaldehyde resin (UF) with spread rate of 200g/m2, pre-pressed for two minutes and hot pressed at 130 °C for 12 minutes. The results revealed that Type 1 plywood gave the lowest thickness swelling, while Type 3 gave the highest static bending properties.