THERMAL-PROPERTIES OF STAINLESS STEEL-FIBER WOOD-PARTICLE COMPOSITES .1. PRODUCTION AND FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTIES OF STAINLESS STEEL-FIBER WOOD-PARTICLE COMPOSITES

How adhesives and stainless steel-fibers influenced the production processes, moduli of rupture, internal bond-strengths and thermal conductivities of new materials, stainless steel-fiber/wood-particle composites are discussed. Stainless steel-fibers with shape and volume similar to wood-particles were uniformly mingled with wood-particles not using a particular operation. Using phenolic resin, the moduli of rupture of the composites decreased being 75% of that of the control (particleboard without stainless steel-fibers). Using isocyanate resin, moduli of rupture compared with that of 100-type particleboard specified by JIS (japan Industrial Standerd) A 5908. Because bending strengths have relationships with apparent specific-gravities of the composites, the bending strengths could be designed by adjusting the apparent specific-gravities. Using phenolic resin, internal bond-strengths of the composites also decreased, but using isocyanate resin, a greater strength could be obtained. Internal bond-strength had relationships with the apparent densities of the composites calculated from wood-particles and resin, eliminating stainless steel. Because stainless steel-fiber has great thermal conductivity, when mingled with wood-particle the heat transmission paths in the composites change, and because of the reduction of wood-particles, the contact state between elements and the internal constitution of the composites change. Thermal conductivity therefore changed with stainless steel-fiber content, and the tendency of the change was complicated, but it could be calculated from the thermal conductivities of the constituents and Kollmann's bridge factor ''Z''. According to the calculation, when the stainless steel-fiber content was 0.2, thermal conductivities of the composites with isocianate resin became less than that of the control.