Working Groups

Working Group 1:

Wood surface modification and functionalization

Working Group 1 will focus on new treatments to bring enhanced or new functionality on the wood surfaces. It should reach to make even smarter products and to enter new fields of applications. Innovative product design and development requires comprehensive knowledge of the micro-mechanisms for surface modification of the specific materials and a good understanding of its behaviour for explaining the mode and mechanisms of action. Also information about the various user needs and preferences will be collected. Based on these considerations development of new surfaces modification processes can be performed to fulfil the customer needs. It is intended to focus and investigate possibilities of eco-friendly treatments.

Working Group 2:

Wood interface modification and interface interactions

Working Group 2 will focus on fundamental studies of wood interface modification which allows for example eco-friendly self-binding or wood to wood binding to occur. The emphasis will be set on studies of non-toxic interface modification methods for wood and wood products. Areas of interest will be e. g. the creation of bacterially generated ahesion, adhesion improvement by enzymatic pre-treatment, interface modification through friction, investigate liquefied wood as a bonding or surface coating material.

In this research area also a comprehensive knowledge on the interface modifications mechanisms and interactions will be gained. Interface analysis will be carried out in order to get results on the effectiveness of the processes and the long term performance.

Working Group 3:

Process and Service life modelling

Working Group 3 will develop adequate models for description of the changes in material propertions under various processes and conditions. Understanding of the impact of different environmental conditions on the quality of the material is essential for the prediction of products performance during life cycle. Looking at various materials and modification methods the knowledge obtained by fundamental research and later used for the development of models will help us to not only to simulate the changes in material properties but also in optimization of existing surface modification techniques and materials. The existent dosage-response-functions of various materials from other fields of research should be modified for the usage of the modified material properties.