Feb 4 2011
Professor Leblon at the University of New Brunswick, located in Fredericton, has received a grant to work on developing sensors that will analyze properties that are inherent in wood. The development will make the work of forest officials more time and cost-efficient.
Almost like a doctor studying a patient’s history to treat him better, she hopes that the sensor will detect the latent properties of wood. This development will prove very useful to the forest department in Canada, which exports a large quantity of wood each year, as the sensor will help authorities identify what type of wood should be shipped, to which particular industry, thus saving valuable time and costs.
The sensor will measure the density and moisture of the wood. Both these properties are very critical to potential exports. The funding of $549,056 has come from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) under its strategic project program. She will work with the university’s centre for magnetic resonance imaging research, in collaboration with scientists at FP Innovations, the University of Toronto and Nagoya University in Japan. Team members belong to different is areas of specialization. It also has wood scientists and scientists working on sensing technologies.
The sensor is attached to wood that will transmit its properties, each log or piece of wood can also be traced to the tree it came from. The team will base its development on the prevailing research on near-infrared spectroscopy, ground- penetrating radar and magnetic resonance technologies. The sensor will be cost-effective and monitor density and moisture in the wood. It will track the cycle of a piece of wood from the tree to a log to a piece of wood to the finished product.
Source: http://www.unb.ca/