• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.460-466
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• 2012

This study was conducted to investigate the surface hardness of thermally-compressed larch wood by compression set and temperature. The surface hardness of thermally-compressed larch wood increased with increasing compression set and temperature. For compression set 60%, the specific gravity was increased as 0.93. However, the surface hardness was lower value as 31.1 N/$mm^2$ compared with a similar specific gravity of the tropical timber. For density profile, less than compression set 40%, compression was observed mainly surface area. On the other hand, more than 50%, density profile variation was reduced by compression of central part. Results of this study indicate that thermally-compressed larch wood can be replace some imported hardwoods such as oak or cherry. However, thermally-compressed larch wood was difficult to replace the tropical timber being imported in terms of surface hardness.