Utilization of birch wood as alternative to beech wood in plywood manufacturing

The aim of the study was to research using possibilities of birch species as alternative to beech wood in plywood manufacturing. For this reason, beech (Fagus orientalis) and birch (Betula pendula) were used as tree species. Melamine urea formaldehyde (MUF) and urea formaldehyde (MUF) resins were used for five ply plywood manufacturing as adhesive.Some mechanical properties such as shear strength, bending strength, modulus of elasticity of the plywood panels were conducted according to TS EN 314-1, TS EN 310, respectively. Physical properties such as density and equilibrium moisture content were determined according to TS EN 323 and TS EN 322, respectively.In the result of that beech plywood panels gave higher shear strength values than those of birch panels. But there was no clear different between bending strength values of beech panels and those of birch panels. It was determined that mechanical properties of the plywood panels from both of two species were decreased with steaming process. It was also shown that shear strength of plywood panels manufactured with MUF resin were higher than those of the test panels manufactured with UF resin.