Check-in: moisture content – radiowave arrival measurement on roundwood and chip trucks

The moisture content of wood chips and fuel- and pulpwood is important for both logistics and industrial processes. Today’s methods for measuring the moisture content of wood chips are slow, and the methods for roundwood moisture measurement are so cumbersome that they are de-facto not used.

This project will develop methods for fast moisture content measurement of wood chip and roundwood trucks. New equipment will be developed and evaluated, as well as new models for the interaction between micro waves and roundwood. The broadband micro wave equipment will measure through the entire truck load, resulting in much better representativeness than the small samples taken with current methods. The effects will be more material- and energy efficient processes (material mixing, debarking, cooking, incineration), faster and fairer execution of the affair, improved logistics and storage, and providing a means for trading roundwood based on dry weight instead of volume.