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Twenty-year-old Pinus radiata trees imported from New Zealand were investigated, and a comparison was made between the outerwood (rings 16–20) and corewood (rings 4–6) in terms of mechanical properties, anatomical characteristics, microfibril angle (MFA), relative crystallinity, crystallite size and lignin content to determine the relationship between their mechanical properties and microstructures. The results demonstrated that the mechanical properties of the Pinus radiata outerwood were significantly better than those of the corewood. The outerwood had a modulus of rupture (MOR) of 106 MPa, a modulus of elasticity (MOE) of 11.4 GPa, and compressive strength parallel to the grain of 38.7 MPa, and the MOR, MOE and compressive strength parallel to the grain of the corewood were 78.9 MPa, 7.12 GPa and 29.3 MPa, respectively. The observed microstructures of the Pinus radiata outerwood and corewood were different, mainly due to differences in cell wall thickness, MFA, and relative crystallinity. The double wall thickness of the tracheid cells of the corewood and outerwood were 3.65 and 5.02 µm, respectively. The MFA data indicated that the average MFA of the outerwood was 14.0°, which was smaller than that of the corewood (22.3°). With X-ray diffraction, the relative crystallinity of the corewood was determined to be 35.7%, while that of the outerwood was 40.2%. However, the crystallite size of the outerwood cell wall shows no obvious difference from that of the corewood. Imaging FTIR spectroscopy showed a slightly higher relative content of lignin in the cell wall of the outerwood. The correlation between the microstructures and mechanical properties showed that the corewood with a thin cell wall, large MFA and low relative crystallinity had poor mechanical properties, while the outerwood with a thicker tracheid, smaller MFA and higher relative crystallinity had better mechanical properties. This means that the MFA, relative crystallinity and cell wall thickness synergically affect the mechanical properties of Pinus radiata in different radial locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the effects of microwave radiation intensity, radiation time and initial wood moisture content (MC) on the properties of temperature development in Eucalyptus urophylla wood samples during the microwave explosion pretreatment have been investigated using a new microwave pretreatment equipment. The results show that 1) with the increase of microwave radiation intensity and a decrease in initial wood MC, both the average temperature and its rate of increase in wood rise rapidly; 2) with an increase in microwave radiation time, the average temperature of wood clearly increases, while the rate of increase in temperature shows a decline. In the microwave explosion pretreatment, the temperature development curve presented two patterns of variation: i) a sharp increase in temperature — a constant temperature — a slow warm-up and ii) a sharp increase in temperature — a rapid decline in temperature — a slow warm-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]