Practical Sawing Parameters for Efficient Energy Usage of Horizontal Bandsaw for Rubberwood Sawing

Abstract

Relationships between cutting energy and relevant cutting and feeding speeds for sawing of rubberwood logs with horizontal bandsaw were studied. The influences of cutting and feeding speeds of different log sizes to the energy of cutting were investigated. The diameter of the rubberwood log in the range of 5-7 inches was chosen due to the limitation of the bandsaw. The economical energy consumption of rubberwood sawing was reported for cost saving purpose. Two linear saw-blade velocity of 22 and 19.8 m/min for cutting ( comparable to this bandsaw speed of 700 and 630 rpm, respectively) and three log feeding speeds of 6, 8 and 10 m/min were studied for each size range of the logs. In addition, the cutting energy of sawing was investigated for each wood board from bottom to top layer of the log (each log can obtain 4 board pieces of wood). The results showed that the lowest cutting energies of 49.18 Wh/log and 54.61 Wh/log were found at a pair of cutting speed 700 rpm and a feeding speed 8 m/min for log ranges of 5-6 inches and 6-7 inches, respectively.