IMPORTANT NOTE

This web page is part of a web site that is no longer actively maintained by anybody at ANU SRES. It has been left on the web due to its apparent popularity (every time we've removed it, people have complained within 24 hours), but is presented AS IS - attempting to contact any individual named on the page is likely to fail, and the SRES webmaster doesn't want to hear about such failures or entertain any communication about updating of the page's contents. You have been warned.

Heat Treatment

The heat treatment involved pressing boards 220mm 320mm in size at C and 3.5 MPa for 300s using a (PHI 6MPa) Hot Press. Significant amounts of steam ware emitted from the boards during pressing.

Once heat treated boards were cut to size and dried in an oven for 12 - 18 hr at C. The samples were then randomly taken out of the oven four at a time, placed in a dessicator over silica gel or phosphorous pentoxide () and transported to a conditioning room. After cooling the samples were weighed, and their thickness measured using digital calipres. The samples were then placed in the humidity chambers (see Section 3.2). All three linear dimensions of the three point bend samples were taken, but only, thickness of the tensile samples and internal bond samples were measured.

  
Figure: The hot press used to heat and pressure test the boards.