DEVELOPMENT OF THE UTILIZATION TECHNOLOGY FOR MELALEUCA WOOD: THE CASE OF WOOD CEMENT BOARD AND BLOCK

摘要

Melaleuca (Melaleuca cajuputi) wood grows as a dominant wood species in secondary forests of peat swamp area, although this wood has not been used commercially up to now. First of all, the fundamental properties for possible uses of Melaleuca wood were investigated. According to the results, it has concluded that there was high possibility to make a value-added use of Melaleuca wood. On the other hand, it has various drawbacks for an industrial use, such as large degree of twist or crook of the log. Shrinkage ratio is also high. High processing technologies should be applied to realize the effective and the value-added uses. And also it seems that it is expected to conduct the reasonable forest management for the cultivation of Melaleuca forest in order to get the larger diameter trees. Therefore, the technological development of wood cement board and block made from Melaleuca wood was conducted as example of value-added use. As the result, it was confirmed that the performance of the wood cement boards and blocks were the same as that of commercial products.