China has been the top importer of U.S. log and lumber since 2010. With the ongoing trade disputes between the U.S. and its trading partners, especially with China, it is of great interest to assess ...the potential impacts of different trade interventions on U.S. forest sector. In this study, we focus on hypothetical uniform tariffs by China on U.S. hardwood products in four scenarios: tariffs imposed on log, lumber, and veneer, respectively, and on these products altogether. With an emphasis on U.S. timberland owners as log producers, a two-stage partial equilibrium displacement model is applied to measure the vertical linkage between log and its secondary products, lumber and veneer, as well as the horizontal linkage between lumber and veneer. Assuming a 25% uniform tariff, our results show that the welfare effects on stakeholders in four scenarios highly differ but U.S. timberland owners suffer substantial welfare loss as a whole in all scenarios. U.S. consumers of lumber and veneer, on the contrary, benefit from China's uniform tariffs in general. The total of China's consumer surplus is negative with its import tariffs on log, lumber, and all three products. Vertical and horizontal linkages within the U.S. hardwood sector are confirmed in all scenarios. Lastly, trade deflection effect is captured as the U.S. would export more hardwood products to the rest of world (ROW), resulting in positive but small changes in consumer surplus in the ROW, in all scenarios.
•The first research to assess the impacts of China’s uniform tariffs within the U.S. hardwood industry.•A two-stage EDM system that simultaneously considering vertical and horizontal linkages between the primary and secondary sectors.•U.S. landowners and China’s consumers will be subject to significant welfare losses due to the tariffs.•Trade deflection effect is captured as the U.S. would export more hardwood products to other countries.
China has been the top importer of U.S. log and lumber since 2010. With the ongoing trade aisputes between ine U.S. and its trading partners, especially with China, it is of great interest to assess ...the potential impacts of different trade interventions on U.S. forest sector. In this study, we focus on hypothetical uniform tariffs by China on U.S. hardwood products in four scenarios: tariffs imposed on log, lumber, and veneer, respectively, and on these products altogether. With an emphasis on U.S. timberland owners as log producers, a two-stage partial equilibrium displacement model is applied to measure the vertical linkage between log and its secondary products, lumber and veneer, as well as the horizontal linkage between lumber and veneer. Assuming a 25% uniform tariff, our results show that the welfare effects on stakeholders in four scenarios highly differ but U.S. timberland owners suffer substantial welfare loss as a whole in all scenarios. U.S. consumers of lumber and veneer, on the contrary, benefit from China's uniform tariffs in general. The total of China's consumer surplus is negative with its import tariffs on log, lumber, and all three products. Vertical and horizontal linkages within the U.S. hardwood sector are confirmed in all scenarios. Lastly, trade deflection effect is captured as the U.S. would export more hardwood products to the rest of world (ROW), resulting in positive but small changes in consumer surplus in the ROW, in all scenarios.
Simple, statically-determinate wooden chair frames constructed with seven types of joints were subjected to cyclic front to back load tests to determine joint durability, chair reparability, and ...parts' reuse. Knockdown joints, namely, screw, bed bolts (with dowel nuts), pinned round mortise and tenon, and pinned rectangular mortise and tenon joints; and glued joints, namely, dowel, round mortise and tenon, and rectangular mortise and tenon joints were included in the study. Glued round and rectangular mortise and tenon joints had the highest levels of cyclic load durability whereas bed bolts had the least. Chairs constructed with knockdown joints were easiest to repair, whereas chairs constructed with glued joints were the most difficult to repair. Parts' recovery with rectangular mortise and tenon joints was high when tenons were replaced with inserted tenons. Likewise, recovery was high with dowel joints since the failed dowels were replaced with larger dowels. Parts' recovery with metal knockdown fasteners was low because of side rail splitting; however, parts' recovery with pinned round and rectangular mortise and tenon joints was high.
Average moment capacity (kN·m) and coefficient of variance of cyclic load test on stools for each life cycle Display omitted
•Wooden chair frames constructed with seven different joint types were subjected to cyclic performance test.•They were compared in terms of joint strength, ease of assembly, disassembly, and repair at different life stages.•Glued joints provide longer product service life, but are more labor-intensive to produce and repair.•Knockdown joints are easy to assemble and disassembly, as well as to repair, but have lower cyclic strength.
Species identification is one of the key steps in the management and conservation planning of many forest ecosystems. We introduce Deep BarkID, a portable tree identification system that detects tree ...species from bark images. Existing bark identification systems rely heavily on massive computing power access, which may be scarce in many locations. Our approach is deployed as a smartphone application that does not require any connection to a database. Its intended use is in a forest, where internet connection is often unavailable. The tree bark identification is expressed as a bark image classification task, and it is implemented as a convolutional neural network (CNN). This research focuses on developing light-weight CNN models through knowledge distillation. Overall, we achieved 96.12% accuracy for tree species classification tasks for ten common tree species in Indiana, USA. We also captured and prepared thousands of bark images—a dataset that we call Indiana Bark Dataset—and we make it available at
https://github.com/wufanyou/DBID
.
The basic manufacturing feasibility and load carrying capacity of computer numerical control (CNC) were evaluated for router-cut joints. More precise and complex shaped geometry was cut on a CNC ...machine so that joint strength increased via providing a better self-locking system. Using the design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA) analysis, the raw material type and joint design were determined as the main drivers that have direct influence on the processing time and yield of the manufacturing process. Moreover, the bending moment capacity of the joints was determined in compression and tension testing and benchmarked those of rectangular mortise and tenon (RM&T) and dowel joints. The results showed that joints constructed of plywood performed better than those of medium-density fiberboard according to DFMA compliance score values. Moreover, the load capacity level of joints constructed of plywood provided stronger joints than MDF. In compression tests, CNC router-cut joints constructed of both plywood and MDF reached equal or higher strength relative to traditional joints. Furthermore, in tension tests, those of strength were lower compared to compression test results. The outcome of this study will contribute to the theoretical and practical knowledge of furniture joinery design.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the forest-products industry locally and globally, including the availability of raw materials, supply chain, production, and product sales. ...Therefore, it was essential to study the effect of COVID-19 in Central and Southeast European countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the forest-products industry plays a vital global role. An international group of wood scientists developed and implemented the web-based questionnaire that consisted of four parts: demographic questions, production changes, COVID data gathering, governmental response to COVID-19, and lessons learned. Participants were mainly from furniture production, joinery, and wood processing. Results indicate that more than 80% of respondents reported negative changes. The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the supply chain, and the most significant changes were in the availability of solid wood (23%) and engineered wood products (21%). Among the most critical issues were increased prices of all materials, increased transportation costs, extended delivery times, limited quantities for all materials, and total disruption of supply chains.
This study explores attitudes toward sustainable-timber resource management and climate-change mitigation by extending the life cycles of wood products and their cascading in Central and Southeastern ...Europe. A comprehensive survey involving the general public and professional organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia, reveals significant support for wood product reuse in construction, emphasizing ecological aspects and sustainability. Despite doubts about wood product quality, motivation for reuse remains high. Challenges, including limited availability and cost, are acknowledged. Reusing and recycling wood products at the end of their life cycle can extend the life of the wood resource and reduce carbon emissions. Cascading is a promising way to combat climate change and prolong the life cycle of wood products. This study highlights the potential of cascading wood use, underscores the necessity to improve the quantification of wood usage through material intensity analysis of buildings, and emphasizes the requirement for more comprehensive education and explanations to promote sustainable practices.
Surface thermal treatment (STT) can achieve efficient and successful thermal modification on wood surfaces, resulting in a beautiful, natural, uniform darker color and velvety texture. This study ...aimed to evaluate the effect of STT on White Ash, Yellow Poplar, and Red Oak specimens using a heated press at varying temperatures and times. To enhance the material utilization, reduce the number of experiments, and optimize the process, we employed artificial neural network (ANN) to model the relationship between the provided color, treatment time, and temperature required to attain the desired color. As the ANN model can simulate the process result very fast with a high degree of accuracy (
R
2
above 0.96), it allowed us to rule off approximately 95% of the possible combinations, conducting a minimal subset of experiments and thereby saving an enormous amount of time (one experiment takes five hours to be prepared appropriately and more than 20 samples need be tested to get the ideal color). Previous research either investigated how to use ANN or demonstrated other new methodologies for applying thermal treatments. In this study, we propose a novel method to do efficient thermal treatment and train an ANN model which helps eliminate the misdeem experiments. Our ANN model can successfully predict the color change of thermally treated wood. The mean absolute percentage errors (MAPE) from our models were from 10.61 to 10.97% for training and 10.00–10.41% for testing. All obtained determination coefficients (
R
2
) were above 0.96. We have demonstrated our method on White Ash, Yellow Poplar, and Red Oak specimens, compared the findings to previous baselines, and exhibited an improvement of over 30% for
R
2
in several instances.
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