Event report – TECH4EFFECT at FORMEC 2019

This year marks the 52th edition of the symposium ‘Forestry Mechanization’ or FORMEC as it is more commonly know which was held together with the 42th edition of the Council on Forest Engineering (COFE) in Sopron, Hungary from October 6th to 9th.

 

Impressions of FORMEC2019 ((c) J. L. Rodriges/RTDS)

Impression from the FORMEC 2019 plenum ((c) J. L. Rodrigues/RTDS)

 

This year TECH4EFFECT had its’ own session which was held on Monday October 7th. It included following presentations:

  • “Productivity and fuel consumption of heavy forwarders under different configurations: benchmarks from fleet-level long-term records (one million loads)” by Raffaele Spinelli and Angelo Conrado de Arruda Moura.
  • “Productivity and Environmental Impacts of Cable-assisted Logging – A case study in southern Oregon, USA” by  Woodam Chung, Brett Morrissette, Preston Gren, Ben Leshchinsky, Kevin Bladon, Jeff Hatten and John Sessions.
  • “A micro-catchment approach to measuring surface run-off after cable logging” by Bruce Talbot, Omar Mologni, Nicholas Clarke, Marek Pierzchala and Rasmus Astrup.
  • “Assessing Cable Tensile Forces of Winch-Assisted Forwarders on Steep Terrain under Real Working Conditions” by Thomas Holzfeind, Christian Kanzian, Karl Stampfer and Franz Holzleitner.
  • “Factors Affecting Productivity and Utilisation of Winch-Assist Machines: Six Case Studies in New Zealand and Canada” by Cameron Leslie, Colin Koszman, James Hunt, Rien Visser, Hunter Harrill and Dominik Roeser.
  • “Flat and wet: Cable yarding on sensitive soils in Europe – motivations, challenges and potential” by Gernot Erber, Raffaele Spinelli, Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo, Dirk Jaeger, Marian Schönauer, Stephan Hoffmann, Bruce Talbot and Karl Stampfer.
FORMEC2019 presentation by Erber et al. ((c) J. L. Rodrigues (RTDS).

FORMEC 2019 presentation by G. Erber et al. ((c) J. L. Rodrigues (RTDS).

 

On Tuesday October 8th our coordinator Rasmus Astrup/NIBIO held a keynote on the “Digitalization of Forest Harvesting: The potential for improved environmental and production efficiency”.

Rasmus Astrup/NIBIO held a keynote at FORMEC 2019

Rasmus Astrup/NIBIO held a keynote at FORMEC 2019 ((c) C. Kanzian.

 

Several posters on TECH4EFFECT were also presented on:

  • “Smart sensing technology for predicting forest road’s bearing capacity by Franz Holzleitner et al.
  • “Indicator based assessment of trafficability of forest roads” by Marian Schönauer et al.
  • “Coppice after 3 different cutting systems: growth capacity and mortality” by Carolina Lombardini et al.

See the posters in this e-poster presentation!

 

It could not have been any better for TECH4EFFECT this year as 3 prizes were awarded to the consortium! What a great achievement – congratulations to

  • Markus Konrad (second person from the left) received an operator award by COFE,
  • Thomas Holzfeind received a student communication award and
  • Marian Schönauer received a poster award.
TECH4EFFECT won 3 prizes at FORMEC 2019

TECH4EFFECT won 3 prizes for presentations and at FORMEC 2019 ((c) C. Kanzian) – from left to right: Rasmus Astrup, Markus Konrad, Thomas Holzfeind and Marian Schönauer.

 

To get more information you can read up here on the full program of FORMEC 2019 and on the conference website you can access the conference proceeding abstracts.

IUFRO

29 September – 5 October 2019, IUFRO, Curitiba, Brazil

The 25th world congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizationstakes (IUFRO) takes place in Curitiba, Brazil, and focuses on Forest Research and Cooperation for Sustainable Development. Congress themes include:

  • Forests for people
  • Forests and climate change
  • Forests and forest products for a greener future
  • Biodiversity, ecosystem services and biological invasions
  • Forests, soil and water interactions

Registration is open already with early bird registration until 25th May!
Check the congress website for more details and follow us to find out, which TECH4EFFECT partners to meet there!

27 – 31 May 2019, LIGNA 2019, Hannover, Germany

For the third time the Wood Industry Summit will be at LIGNA 2019. Taking place from 27 to 31 May in Hannover, Germany (hall 26), the summit focuses on “Access to Resources and Technology”. It is a well-established showcase for the forestry and wood industries organized by our partner KWF (German Forestry Council) together with Deutsche Messe.

Meet Bruce Talbot from NIBIO giving ‘An overview of technologies for monitoring the impact of forest machines on the soil ‘
in Hall 26, Stand H28 on 31 May. 2019, 11:15 AM – 11:45 AM.

Have a look at the event website for more details: LIGNA 2019

Field trip: Ponsse machines in action!

Read more

Two new partners in TECH4EFFECT!

Confirming the high relevance of research and innovation in TECH4EFFECT, two additional organisations have recently joined the TECH4EFFECT consortium. The Department of Forest Work Science and Engineering from the University of Goettingen (Germany) is continuing the work previously done at Freiburg University on timber harvesting and site impact. The South African Stellenbosch University is a key connection point to the South African forestry sector, especially to provide machine derived data to the efficiency portal and associated research.

 

 

Field trials: Cable-assisted timber harvesting on steep terrain

In cable-assisted timber harvesting forces on the cable are enormous. But how strong exactly are they?

As part of TECH4EFFECT WP3 , Markus Engel and Andreas Mayerhofer (ÖBf – Austrian Federal Forests ) and Thomas Holzfeind from BOKU carried out investigations on winch assisted harvesting machines in the ÖBf forest district Flachau (Austria). They recorded the inclination of the machine during operation on steep terrain using a tilt sensor installed on the winch assisted Valmet 840TX forwarder. At the same time, the tensile forces in the cable were measured with a load shackle. In addition, all activities of the machine were recorded by an action camera, which will be analysed later together with inclination data and the tensile forces. The results are intended to shed light on the tensile forces that occur in the cable of the machine as a function of the work processes and the machine inclination.

 

Follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter and subscribe to our newsletter to be among the first to know the results!

 

Cable assisted forwarder operating on steep terrain; pictures: Holzfeind Thomas

7 December 2017, BBI JU Stakeholder forum, Brussels, Belgium

The BBI JU Stakeholder forum in Brussels is a one-day event to bring together stakeholders from the bioeconomy and present all 65 ongoing BBI JU projects, including TECH4EFFECT. Register to meet our coordinator Rasmus Astrup (NIBIO):

https://stakeholderforum.bbi.europa.eu/

The program incluedes plenary sessions with keynote speeches, but also thematic breakout sessions on the following topics:

  • The role of the primary sector in building bio-based industries
  • Industrial innovation – defining the direction for science-based innovation
  • The value for Europe’s citizens – aligning economic & societal expectations & needs
  • New markets, new sectors, new products

Have a look at the full programme!

Stakeholder feedback collected during this event will help to shape BBI JU’s future role in the bioeconomy!