Treesearch

Aggregate housing data were overwhelmingly positive in March. Total March housing starts achieved their greatest level since July 2006. Total and single-family permits rebounded strongly as well. Houses under construction and housing completions also attained their highest levels in 13 years. New single-family house sales recorded significant gains. Existing house sales were negative month-over-month, and housing doyens attributed this to a lack of inventory. Total and single-family construction spending were positive month-over-month and year-over-year. In sum, private residential...

The year-over-year housing data for April were all robustly positive. However, month-over-month declines were reported for total and single-family housing starts, total and single-family permits, total housing completions, and new single-family and existing house sales. Total and single-family houses under construction and total and single-family construction spending were positive month-over-month.

In 2017, a moisture monitoring study was initiated on an eight-story, mass timber building located in Portland, Oregon. A detailed description of the monitoring program and initial monitoring results from the first year of the program were published previously. It was discovered that by the end of Year 1, some of the mass timber components had not dried below 19% moisture content (MC). This technical note is a follow-up to the original paper to examine how the building changed over its first 3 years after construction. All of the locations monitored over 3 years have reached stable...

Wood extractives, solvent-soluble fractions of woody biomass, are considered to be a factor impeding or excluding fungal colonization on the freshly harvested conifers. Among wood decay fungi, the basidiomycete Phlebiopsis gigantea has evolved a unique enzyme system to efciently transform or degrade conifer extractives but little is known about the mechanism(s). In this study, to clarify the mechanism(s) of softwood degradation, we examined the transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome of P. gigantea when grown on defned media containing microcrystalline cellulose and pine sapwood extractives...

Preparing cellulose II nanocrystals (CNC II) requires a polymorph transformation of natural cellulose I feedstocks. The transformation is usually achieved via a process such as mercerization or dissolution– regeneration. This study demonstrated a new method to prepare CNC II directly from bleached kraft pulp (BKP, a commercially available cellulose I feedstock) in a mildly acidic lithium bromide trihydrate (MALBTH) system, a concentrated (∼61 wt%) solution of LiBr in water with a very low concentration (2.5 mM) of sulfuric acid. First, the BKP was treated in the MALBTH system to generate a...

Carboxylated cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were produced from cotton linter using a mixture of a dicarboxylic acid (maleic acid or succinic acid) and its corresponding anhydride with or without catalyst in acetic acid as solvent. The low solubilities of these dicarboxylic acids can ease chemical recovery and decrease environmental impact (especailly maleic acid is a U.S. FDA approved indirect food additive (21CFR175-177)) and capital costs compared with the conventional concentrated sulfuric acid hydrolysis for producing CNCs. The dicarboxylicacid-produced CNCs (DC-CNCs) contained surface...

Coupled fire-atmosphere models are increasingly being used to study low-intensity fires, such as those that are used in prescribed fire applications. Thus, the need arises to evaluate these models for their ability to accurately represent fire spread in marginal burning conditions. In this study, wind and fuel data collected during the Prescribed Fire Combustion and Atmospheric Dynamics Research Experiments (RxCADRE) fire campaign were used to generate initial and boundary conditions for coupled fire-atmosphere simulations. We present a novel method to obtain fuels representation at the...

A naturally occurring smart mycelium surface with tunable wettability is demonstrated. The commercially produced mycelium foam shows a natural hydrophobic and nonabsorbent surface with water contact angles well above 135°. The surface maintains its hydrophobicity and nonabsorbance after being compressed into a thin film under pressure and mild temperatures. We report that this surface carries tunable wettability. We have shown that a facile water treatment followed by room-temperature drying initially renders the surface highly hydrophilic and absorbent. Subsequent conditioning at 50 °C at...

The standard for calculating grade quality index (GQI) is a three-step process. First, failure codes are assigned during testing. Second, strength ratios are calculated from failure codes recorded during post-test analysis, not including failure from slope of grain. Third, the lower fifth percentile strength ratio is identified, which is defined as the GQI. In the past, the process of calculating strength ratios required one to correctly interpret and apply calculations per ASTM D4761 (current edition) and ASTM D245 (current edition) or gain remote access to USDA Forest Service, Forest...

February housing data indicated moderation in the U.S. housing market. Month-over-month data were mostly mixed; year-over-year data were predominantly positive, with the exceptions of total housing starts, multifamily starts, and multifamily housing under construction. New single-family and existing house sales were negative month-over-month and positive year-over-year. Single-family construction spending was positive month-over-month and year-over-year.