%0 Research article
%T Determining the impact of some wood characteristics on the performance of a mobile chipper
%A Spinelli, Raffaele
%A Magagnotti, Natascia
%A Paletto, Giuseppe
%A Preti, Christian
%D 2011
%J Silva Fennica
%V 45
%N 1
%R doi:10.14214/sf.33
%U https://silvafennica.fi/article/33
%X A study was conducted to determine the effect of some wood  characteristics such as species, moisture content and tree part on the  performance and product quality offered by a mobile industrial chipper,  of the type commonly used for roadside chipping. Two main species, two  tree parts and two moisture content levels were combined in a factorial  design yielding 8 treatments, each replicated 5 or 6 times. A flow meter  was installed on the chipper engine, and all chips produced were  weighed and sampled for moisture content and particle size distribution.  The results indicated that some wood characteristics such as species  and moisture content have a secondary effect on chipper productivity and  fuel consumption, which are primarily controlled by piece size. In  particular, fuel consumption per unit dry mass seem to be rather  constant and in the range of 3.2 l per oven dry ton. Moisture content  and tree part may have a significant effect on the particle size  distribution of chips. Of course, these results were only verified for  the species used in the test and for industrial chippers, and may change  if substantially different species or machines are used.