Abstract—The main obstacle of oil palm stem (OPS) as a material for plywood manufacturing is the material that comes from a monocotyledon plant, which means that the material is not really a wood as what the wood-based industries have been used to. OPS are made up of parenchyma and vascular bundles. Fibres that are supposed to make up the strength are less and irregular in characteristic as compared to the ‘dicotyledonous’ wood. Due to its nature there is an extensive variation in moisture contents and basic density values at different part of OPS. This paper reports the investigation made on the effect of veneer treatment with phenol formaldehyde on dimensional stability and mechanical properties of oil palm stem plywood namely thickness swelling, water absorption, compression and panel shear. Four sources of plywood were used in this study. Type A and B were commercial oil palm plywood from 2 commercial factories. This plywood was using tropical veneer for its face and back layer. Type C was tropical plywood while Type D was 100% oil palm plywood using veneer treatment with phenol formaldehyde. The results showed that plywood Type D has lowest water absorption and highest value of compression and panel shear strength. Whereas plywood Type B exhibited lowest thickness swelling.
Index Terms—Mechanical properties, oil palm stem plywood, thickness swelling, water absorption.
Hasmawi Khalid and Zakiah Ahmad are with Institute Infrastructure Engineering and Sustainable Management (IIESM), UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Malaysia, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor (e-mail: hasmawiky@gmail.com).
Paridah Md. Tahir is with Institute of Tropical Forestry and Timber Product (INTROP), Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor DarulEhsan.
JamaludinKasim is with Faculty of Applied Sciences, UniversitiTeknologi MARA (UiTM) Malaysia, 26400 Bandar PusatJengka, Pahang DarulMakmur.
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Cite:Hasmawi Khalid, Zakiah Ahmad, Paridah Md. Tahir, and Jamaludin Kasim, "Effect of Veneer Treatment with Phenol Formaldehyde on Dimensional Stability and Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Stem (OPS) Plywood," International Journal of Engineering and Technology vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 536-540, 2014.
