A novel high temperature heat treatment process for wood

Wood is heated to temperatures in the range of 180–240°C in heat-treatment furnaces. At these temperatures, the wood structure undergoes changes leading to better dimensional stability, better resistance to biological attacks, and a darker attractive color. The high-temperature heat treatment of wood is an alternate and ecologically-sound wood preservation process to chemically treated wood. During heat treatment, wood goes through simultaneous heat and mass transfer. The heat is transferred from the hot gases to the wood boards in the furnace. As the temperature of wood increases, water content of wood vaporizes and diffuses out of the boards. At higher temperatures, a number of irreversible structural changes take place in wood cells. The furnace design is important to carry out the heat treatment process uniformly and effectively. A new heat treatment furnace design has been proposed at UQAC and a prototype furnace has been built and tested. Also, a 3D model of the furnace was developed to complement the experimental work and to gain insight into the heat treatment process taking place in the furnace. In this article, the new furnace design and its advantages are discussed. Results of the measurements and predictions of the mathematical model are presented to show the effectiveness of the new furnace design for heat treating standard wood boards as well as pieces of wood with different geometries

Training adapted to Alzheimer patients for reducing daily activities errors and cognitive decline

Alzheimer disease becomes a major issue in elder population. To enhance their autonomy and solve future financial issues, we propose an adaptive game based on a non-intrusive shoe-mounted accelerometer able to recognize daily activities and errors. By solving puzzles, the user can train himself his erroneous activities, and re-learn a few. The main goal behind this game is to delay the cognitive decline while creating an evaluation tool for the health-care professional by the computation of a score taking into account the correctitude and the perseverance