May 2009

Record Grants and Contracts: WSE faculty set a record with over $3.2 million in new grants, contracts and co-op funding awarded in calendar year 2008!

Kudos: Charles Brunner was named the 2009 recipient of the Robert Aufderheide Award by the student Xi Sigma Pi society. This award is given by the students to honor an outstanding instructor in the College who has made a difference in their lives. Charles clearly fits that bill. The Oregon State University Orange Team won 2nd place in the 2009 National Timber Bridge Competition bringing home $850 in awards! The bridge was designed, analyzed, constructed and tested as a part of Rakesh Gupta’s WSE458 course in Wood Design.

Recent PR: WSE faculty and projects with VTC wood and Mighty Pine shelving were featured in the May and April issues of Oregon Business Magazine. Both projects have seen recent attention in other media as well.

More Wave Tank Action: Rakesh Gupta and Milo Clauson (with Dan Cox, Civil Eng.) are testing wood-frame walls under wave loading in the Hinsdale Wave Lab. Click here for a short movie:
http://woodscience.oregonstate.edu/briefs/MPG/Normal_Wall_0.8M_Wave.mpg.

New projects!!

• Scott Leavengood, Chris Knowles, and Eric Hansen met with Gary Lettman of the Oregon Department of Forestry and Charles Keegan from the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of Montana to map out a joint project to track infrastructure and fiber use trends in Oregon. The University of Montana conducts this type of research for many of the western states via the Forest Inventory Analysis program of the U.S. Forest Service. OWIC plans to conduct an annual "leadership survey" of the Oregon forest products industry to track industry leaders' views on major issues impacting the industry, changes in gross sales and production, trends in capital expenditures, and innovation performance.
  
  
• The United Soybean Board (USB) will fund a new Kaichang Li project that will seek to develop polyamines from glycerin.©
  
  
• New WUR projects for the FY09 grant include:
  
  

  • Development of High Performance Cellulose-Based Nanocomposites (Simonsen, Nairn, Muszynski)
  • Marketing Sophistication to Improve Competitiveness of Medium-Size U.S. Sawmills (Hansen)
  • Hydrodynamic and Drying Properties of Biomass in Deep and Moving Bed Dryers (Milota)
  • Identifying Customer Relationship Management Practices that Foster Innovation (Leavengood/Hansen)
  • Experiments and Modeling for Orthogonal Cutting of Wood-Based Composites (Nairn)

Portland Wood Magic: Over 900 third and fourth graders journeyed to Portland's World Forestry Center to take part in the 6th PDX Annual Wood Magic. Chief Magician Margie York led a merry band of Magicians including Fred Kamke, Barb Lachenbruch, Scott Leavengood, Connie Love, Leslie McDaniel, Patricia Morrell, John Simonsen, and George Swanson along with Kevin and Caroline Kaster of Kaster Custom Sawing spent 2 beautiful days educating folks about the wonders of wood in 15 minute increments. Thanks are also due to the World Forestry Center for again hosting the event.

Non-timber FP Workshop: Joe Karchesy, WSE alum Louis Leatherman, and Jim Reeb taught at a Lincoln County Extension Non-timber Forest Products Workshop. Sixty-three people attended the 2-day affair held in Eddyville.

WSE at AgFest: WS&E, led by wood magician Margie York once again hosted a booth at the Oregon Ag Fest. This 2 day affair brings over 20,000 kids to the State Fairgrounds in Salem to learn a bit about natural resources, including that most important of materials, wood. What could be more exciting than blowing bubbles through an oak straw? Assisting Margie were Alicia Allen, Kelsey Freidt, Ana Lucia Fonseca, Becky Jensen, Matt Peterson, Derek Thompson, Ashlee Tibbets, Jeff Vaughn, Valeria Villavicencio, and John Williamson. Thanks to all who helped educate the next generation of wood magicians.

International Visitors: Dr. Lyndall Bull from Australian National University has been with WSE for the past three weeks working with Eric Hansen and Derek Thompson. The primary outcome of her time here is a manuscript comparing current carbon market schemes in the U.S. and Australia. Chris Knowles and Eric Hansen hosted WSE Visiting Scientist Dr. Anders Roos of the Swedish Agricultural University in Uppsala. In addition to the WSE’ weekly seminar, Anders collaborated on a comparison of the product innovativeness of North American and Swedish/Finnish softwood sawmills.

Invited Talks: Eric Hansen was a Keynote Speaker at the Oregon SAF conference covering the topic, “The Global Social Context of Forestry.” Lech Muszyński presented an overview of OSU WS&E to faculty and students of the Department of Wood Science and Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences in Poland.

International Travels: Bill Galligan traveled to the 16th International Symposium on Nondestructive Testing at Beijing University but found that the Chinese government cancelled the meeting because of concerns for the N1H1 flu. The paper will appear in the proceedings of the meeting which has been rescheduled for October 2009. Lech Muszyński participated in the COST Action FP0802 Workshop “Experimental and computational methods in wood micromechanics” held in Vienna, Austria, where he gave a formal presentation as an invited external observer. Fred Kamke attended the Ligna wood machinery fair in Hannover Germany and met WSE alum Allan Czinger (BS99) who is the Russian Market Manager for the USNR group—the parent company of COE Manufacturing. Fred also presented a paper at the 4th Veneer Processing and Products Symposium in Espoo Finland.

DEPARTMENT OF WOOD SCIENCE & ENGINEERING
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

What is this? A monthly capsule summary of selected project updates, new ventures, new grants/ contracts/ testing programs, major papers, accomplishments, awards and kudos, other stuff you are proud of, or activities that your colleagues (and DH) might find interesting. The goal is better awareness of the professional activities of faculty, staff and students in Wood Science & Engineering.