Minimizing dust production during helical planing while maintaining wood surface quality.

4 July 2017

Legend: Dust collection system used for the study. This collection system that captures chips at the source produced during cutting was developed to move them towards a cyclone through the action of a vacuum. The cyclonic separator was used to separate the dust from large particles.

 

Dust produced during woodworking operations may not be fully captured by machine-integrated devices and can therefore be dispersed in the workshop. Repeated exposure of workers to wood dust has begun to raise many health concerns (respiratory problems, such as asthma and bronchitis, as well as skin allergies). Wood dust has even been classified as a potential carcinogen. Their harmful health effects are mainly due to specific wood characteristics such as the physical and chemical nature of the particles, the size and amount of the dust itself.

Cutting parameters influence the size of the chips and consequently the resulting dust emission during the machining of wood. This study was carried out at the Renewable Materials Research Centre and its aim was to assess the effect of cutting parameters on dust emissions and the surface roughness produced by helical planing a hardwood of industrial importance in Canada, red oak (Quercus rubra L.).

Two cutting depths (0.5 and 1.0 mm) and eight feed speeds (6 to 20 m / min) were combined to obtain four average thicknesses of chips (from 0.10 to 0.22 mm). The results showed that dust emissions decrease as the average chip thickness increases and cutting depth decreases. However, the planing with thicker chips increased the surface roughness, which is not desirable. By applying regression techniques, this study made it possible to determine the best helical planing conditions in order to obtain the best surface quality of wood while minimizing dust emissions.

For more information, see the article.


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