Linear woodcutting of European beech: experiments and computations

Abstract

Hardwood species are becoming increasingly important with the growing need for a diversity of forests that have recently been facing global temperature changes or conifer pests. This further leads to the growth of its potential as a building material that may originate from sustainable production. As hardwoods need to be properly processed, the article deals with the disintegration of European beech. The influence of wood grain direction, uncut chip thickness and cutting speed on the cutting force magnitudes was experimentally investigated using the device with a rotating arm of approximately 4 m in diameter. Then, the disintegration process was modelled using the finite element method in Abaqus/Explicit. The developed material model consisting of orthotropic elasticity and plasticity with rate-independent and rate-dependent tensile–compressive failure asymmetry was implemented through the user subroutine, while the crack initiation and propagation were realized using the element deletion technique. The computationally predicted average values of cutting forces and chip shapes were, except for a few tests, in good agreement with the experiments. It means that the model may be used for further investigation, such as the influence of tool wear.Hardwood species are becoming increasingly important with the growing need for a diversity of forests that have recently been facing global temperature changes or conifer pests. This further leads to the growth of its potential as a building material that may originate from sustainable production. As hardwoods need to be properly processed, the article deals with the disintegration of European beech. The influence of wood grain direction, uncut chip thickness and cutting speed on the cutting force magnitudes was experimentally investigated using the device with a rotating arm of approximately 4 m in diameter. Then, the disintegration process was modelled using the finite element method in Abaqus/Explicit. The developed material model consisting of orthotropic elasticity and plasticity with rate-independent and rate-dependent tensile–compressive failure asymmetry was implemented through the user subroutine, while the crack initiation and propagation were realized using the element deletion technique. The computationally predicted average values of cutting forces and chip shapes were, except for a few tests, in good agreement with the experiments. It means that the model may be used for further investigation, such as the influence of tool wear.