Characterization of Wood Resin-Adhesive Spray

The overall goal of this dissertation was to improve the resin efficiency in the manufacturing process of wood strand-based composites through controlling the characteristics of resin-adhesive spray to produce a uniform droplet size and narrow size distribution. Current lack of corresponding research on the characteristics of resinadhesive spray for maximum resin efficiency inspired the following research: 1) Comprehensive review of the empirical droplet size and size distribution of resinadhesives in wood composite production; 2) Application of a laser diffraction analyzer to characterize wood resin-adhesive spray; 3) Characterizing the spray pattern and mechanism of spinning disk atomization of wood resin-adhesives; 4) Application of a novel spray method, ultrasonic atomization, to generate wood resin-adhesive spray; 5) Investigation of extensional properties of wood resin-adhesives. The research results indicated that: 1) the laser diffraction analyzer is an effective tool to characterize wood-resin-adhesive spray; 2) wood-resin-adhesives under spinning disk atomization at a flow rate of 100 ml/min and rotation rate between 10,000 rpm and 15,000 rpm experienced ligament formation with an average droplet size between 10 jum to 20 jum and a size distribution mostly around 0 jum to 60 jum; 3) Ultrasonic atomization of wood resin-adhesives has great potential for resin efficiency improvement in industrial applications; 4) the wood-resin-adhesives used in this study showed viscoelastic behavior under extensional flow