News Archive - Page 4 of 7

Field test: Controlling of cable yarding operations

28. March 2019

BOKU and Konrad are working on enabling advanced operation progress monitoring and performance evaluation through pooling sensor information on cable yarders.
The first field test has taken place during a downhill yarding operation with a Konrad Mounty 4000 yarder to test the system under real-life conditions, contributing to work package 3 – harvesting.

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Newsletter March 2019

27. March 2019

Just out! Read our latest newsletter:

TECH4EFFECT NEWSLETTER MARCH 2019

Consortium meeting and field trip
T4E Bucking App to assist motor manual bucking
Prize for oral presentation to TECH4EFFECT partners
SGGW field trip for silvicultural case study
Publication: Decreasing fuel consumption of excavator-based harvesters with machine control system
Publication: Spatial distribution of the potential forest biomass availability in Europe

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Publication: Spatial distribution of the potential forest biomass availability in Europe

11. February 2019

European forests are considered a crucial resource for supplying biomass to a growing bio-economy in Europe. This study aimed to assess the potential availability of forest biomass from European forests and its spatial distribution. We tried to answer the questions (i) how is the potential forest biomass availability spatially distributed across Europe and (ii) where are hotspots of potential forest biomass availability located?

Verkerk from EFI et. al analysed the total availability of forest biomass and spatial distribution of woody biomass potential for 39 European countries. They found out that the distribution of biomass potentials that are currently unused only partially coincides with regions that currently have high levels of wood production.

Read the abstract or download the full pdf!
Data is also available on Zenodo.

Figure 1: Comparison of the BASE, TECH, HIGH and BIOD forest biomass potentials in 39 European countries

Field trip: Ponsse machines in action!

17. January 2019

Publication: Decreasing Fuel Consumption of Excavator-Based Harvesters with Machine Control System

16. January 2019

Compared with purpose-built units, excavator-based harvesters offer many advantages, but they consume more fuel. Fuel efficiency can be increased by a better interface between the excavator and the harvester head.

Spinelli et al from CNR just published testing results of a new adaptation kit in Forests 2019 (10(1), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/f10010043). The kit is specifically designed to improve the communication between these two components. After installing the adaptation kit, productivity increased 6%, while fuel consumption per hour decreased 3.5%. Fuel consumption and CO2 emissions per product unit decreased 10%, as an average.

Read the abstract or download the full pdf!

Figure 1: One of the excavator-based harvesters at work (left); the adaptation kit (right).

Consortium meeting in Finland

13. November 2018

We are currently in Joensuu, Finland for our TECH4EFFECT consoritum meeting. Thanks to LUKE for the warm welcome in their beautiful wooden office building! Sign up to our newsletter to receive major updates from TECH4EFFECT:
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SGGW

SGGW field trip for silviculture case study

10. October 2018

Partners from SGGW visited case study areas for the silvicultural work package (WP2) in the Polanów Forest District to identify most productive silvicultural systems, techniques and technologies and assess them.

This State Forest District is located in the northern part of Poland, with about 91,000 m3 of wood harvested annually, mainly pine, beech, spruce and birch. The field meeting was a great opportunity to interact with the local state foresters and owners of private forest companies. Possibilities of improvements in the efficiency of forest operations with regards to socio-economic changes occurring in Poland were discussed. One of the phenomena that need to be faced is a lack of labour force. Details like comparison of manual thinning (chainsaw and tractor/skidder) and thinning with machinery (forwarder and harvester) from an economic point of view and efficiency in different site conditions were also discussed.

Read the full report at the Polanów State Forest district web page (in Polish):
http://www.polanow.szczecinek.lasy.gov.pl

First public deliverable: Identifying and extending key silvicultural systems

1. October 2018

The silviculture work package (WP2) focuses on the optimization of the access to wood resources. This goal involves two main aspects:

The evaluation of appropriate silvicultural operations, and
The application of appropriate harvesting techniques – aiming at the promotion of mechanized systems wherever possible.

Appropriate silvicultural measures are principally intended to increase wood production, maintain the biodiversity and resilience but also to enable and facilitate the use of efficient silvicultural and harvesting operations. The development of methods for increasing the wood production and optimizing the interface between harvesting technology and silvicultural procedures is the research emphasis of this work package.

Look at the abstract or read the full deliverable!

TECH4EFFECT at FORMEC 2018

24. September 2018

The 51 International Symposium on Forestry Mechanization from 25-27 September 2018 in Madrid has an impressive list of talks from TECH4EFFECT partners, on a wide range of topics. Most of our project is covered in those talks: advances in forestry mechanization, our efficiency portal, fuel efficiency in harvesting, an app for motor-manual bucking and much more. Have a look at the list of TECH4EFFECT-related presentations on our events page!