SHORT  DESCRIPTION 

The main objective of the course is to prepare students to manage various duties and responsibilities during engineering wood based materials manufacturing activity.

It is obligatory and planned for a total of 60 hours, during the first year of both second levels of studies, Scientific Master degree, of the "Wood Processing Engineering" study program and Professional Master degree, of the “Wood Constructions”. 

30 hours of lectures form the background for 30 hours of seminars, labs, project work and one-day industrial trip, which are used to develop and train the knowledge from the lectures and recommended literature through counting the examples in order to understand the nature of engineering wood based materials manufacturing.

The student needs to possess good knowledge on structural timber, mechanical wood processing techniques and wood gluing.

The course is part of teaching curricula taking into account that engineering wood based materials are important products used as raw material by construction sector. Technologies applied for production of Glued Laminated Timber (GLULAM), Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), Structural Composite Lumber (SCL), “I” beams and Wood Plastic Composites (WPC)

present complex combinations of mechanical, physical and chemical processes, thereby influencing strongly on properties and costs of products, and consequently on the quality and performance of constructions manufactured by materials mentioned above.   

During the course the student will acquire fundamental knowledge about the production of engineered wood based materials and concepts of production lines planning. The individual items of equipments will be examined and described in the context of the production system, as well as the interrelation between the various machine centers with respect to operational characteristics, production capacities, raw material storage requirements and effects on product.

Laboratories will familiarize students with properties of above mentioned materials, enabling them to judge right on advantages and disadvantages of these products comparing to solid wood. Methods for quality testing of small scale samples will be studied referring to ISO and EN standards.

At the end of the course the student should be able:

·         to calculate wood and chemical requirements;

·         to figure operations and to organize the activity in all sectors of a plant;

·         to use and maintain machineries and equipments;

·          to calculate and to readjust working parameters of equipments according to working intensity;

·         to choose appropriate technology, referring to type and specifications of product;

·         to develop technological schemes and to read technology and engineering drawings;

·         to performing lab tests according to EN standards;

·          to plan a modern production line.     

The student’s assessment will be performed by means of a final oral exam. To be eligible for the final exam the student have to participate at least in 50% of hours of lessons and in 80% of hours of seminars as well as to perform a passable presentation of its specific course work. There are foreseen 100 points for the course in total. 5 points regards to active participation during the course, 20 points regards to two mid-term exams during the course, 15 points to the project, 10 points to labs and 50 points for the final exam. The limit for a successful end of the course is 45 points. After that, 6 credits (ETC) will be granted to the student.