This final thesis is performed on commission of Torsby forestry administration, Stora Enso Skog. Stora Enso Skog is one of the major forestry companies of Sweden. The main business area is located in and around the region of Bergslagen. During the last decade the practice of forest management has rapidly changed due to a new forest legislation. The new law has resulted in that the production goal is equal to the environmental goal within forestry.

Sweden recently changed the national regulation of chimney sweeping. This study has two purposes. The first purpose is to evaluate the effect of this reform to see if the new regulation has led to an effect in terms of increased chimney fires in single-family houses and for the wood-burning and oil-burning stoves, respectively. The second purpose is an updating of a previous study (Mattsson 1994) of analysis of society´s benefits and costs of different alternative sweeping frequencies for wood-burning and oil-burning stoves. This study also has a secondary purpose to examine the extent to which the local sweeping rules vary with climate conditions.  Mattsson, based on his results, proposed that the sweeping requirements for oil-burning stoves should be reduced from twice a year to once every second year and for wood-burning stoves the sweeping should be reduced from four times to once each year.

In my thesis I have sand blasted different type of woods - ring-porous and diffuseporous deciduous tree species and conifers - to show different results depending on the species, the direction of the grain and the effects of surface treatment of a blasted surface.The results of my tests were sometimes unexpected, such as that the sand from blasting almost completely disappeared, that all wood surfaces after blasting exhibited a much lighter or paler surface than before and that the diffuse-porous tree species showed differences in hardness between the beginning and end of annual rings.By creating a library of different kinds of wood and sandblasted surface treatment, I have created a reference bank that I will be able to use me in the manufacturing of interiors, furniture and other objects..

Title: Kvarteret Tvättstugan, an apartment building with massive wood construction. A thesis about acoustic and fire requirements and a comparison of energy and moisture aspects. Earlier restrictions in the Swedish legislation have resulted that only a small percentage of the apartment buildings that have been built are designed with a massive wood construction. It has been allowed to build unrestricted with wood since 1994 as long as the function of requirements are fulfilled. This change in the rules together with the great environmental benefits of wood has led to that more companies choose to build apartment buildings with wood. One of these companies is Folkhem Production AB.

Dead wood is important for many species. The amount of coarse dead wood (diameter >10 cm) is much lower in managed forest than in unmanaged forests. Stumps constitute the largest proportion of the volume of coarse dead wood in managed forests. Since stump harvest for biofuel may increase, the amount of dead wood will decrease even more, which may threaten biodiversity. The first aim of this study was to compare the amounts of fine woody debris (FWD, .

The aim of this study was to quantify the productivity and the costs of different harvesting systems (teams), containing harvesters equipped with accumulating harvester heads and forwarders, in first commercial thinnings were an integrated harvest of pulpwood and energy wood were performed. In the beginning the plan was to study and measure 20 sites before and after harvest. Due to storms during the summer of 2010, complete data could only be obtained from 8 of these 20 sites. Seven of these sites were privately owned and one was owned by UPM, all of the sites had been pre-commercially thinned. The mean stem density before harvest was 2578 stems per ha and the mean stem volume was 0.074 m3solid over bark.On average 1518 stems/ha was harvested.

As demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly, the market for biomass pellets is expected to continue to grow in the near future. Most of the new raw materials that are discussed for pellet production have one thing in common; the production costs will increase compared to using traditional raw materials such as sawdust and planer shavings. The aim of this thesis is to investigate to what degree increased use of new raw materials for pellet production will affect the general pellet prices in Sweden and to survey what plans Swedish pellet producers have concerning new raw materials. To investigate the raw material situation of the Swedish pellet producers an industry survey was performed. Literature studies were also made on previous research in the subject field. Calculations of the production costs for pellets were done for the raw materials sawdust, wet sawmill chips and energy wood respectively. New raw materials are already used by the large-scale pellet producers in Sweden.

The competition for Norway spruce pulp wood in Central Sweden increases, forcing the supply-structure of Holmen to face two important challenges. Firstly, it is of the outmost strategically importance to secure the long-term supply of Norway spruce pulp wood to the industries. Secondly, Holmen desires to increase the obtainable volume of Norway spruce pulp wood. This would enable the company to choose volumes in the lower price-segments and thereby decrease the dependency of costly marginal volumes. As this work shows, one part in managing these challenges could be to lower the quality standards concerning root rot (Heterobasidium annosum). Facts presented in the work shows that: 1. Technically, the TMP-industry of Braviken can handle a much more rotted pulp wood than that used today, although the cost of refinement increases.

I have done a follow up study of the restoration of two rivers, Röälven and Grundan, in order to evaluate the effects of the restoration on the endemic population of trout. Both rivers have been used for timber floating during many years throughout the 20th century, and because of this, had all obstacles such as rocks and wood parts removed. In 2004-2005 both rivers were restored, and rocks and wood were put back into the rivers. Spawning grounds were created and boulder dams were constructed to promote the streaming water. The result showed that the trout population of both rivers increased after the restoration, but also that the trout population of Röälven increased more than that of Grundan.

The Swedish forest have about 100 000 km of watercourses and it?s an important structure in Swedish landscapes and catchments. In some of the watercourses lives spieces like the freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) which both are sensitive for inteference from the forestry. The new EU water framework directive has a goal that all surface water will have high or good ecological- and good chemical status at latest by the 22nd December of 2015. The study has been made in the catchment of Håltjärnsbäcken and it is from a national perspective one of the most valuable streams in Sweden and which also have been included in a LIFE-project. The catchment is situated within the Eco-park of Malingsbo-Kloten and managed by Sveaskog AB.

The European Council agreed in 2008 on a climate and energy package to combat global warming. This package is valid for each EU member country and means that greenhouse gas emissions must fall by at least 20% and the EU's energy use to 20%, consisting of Renewable Energy in 2020. The Swedish Government has set stringent climate and energy with the intention to set an example for the rest of Europe. For example, renewable energy sources account for at least 50% of energy use and our climate emissions to fall by 40% by 2020. A combination of these goals and a steadily rising oil price has led to an increased demand for wood fuel in the form of such branches and tops.

This study is a part of a Swedish research and development project that is about heat-treatEd Wood and is led by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Luleå University of Technology. Products that are heat-treated already exists on the market, foremost the Finnish brand ThermoWood®, bur the project group want to find out if it would be possible to start a Swedish production with somewhat different applications than what is common today. The heat-treatEd Wood has many attributes that have changed in the heating process. It becomes more biologically durable, it gains stability in form and dimensions and it becomes darker and looses several unwanted extractives such as resin. Disadvantages that can be mentioned are that the wood becomes fragile and the strength properties changes. My main purpose with this study is to look into customer involvement in the early phase of product development. I also want to find out if the customers I interview think that the product is worth working with, which means start a Swedish production.

Italy is the third largest market in Europe with a population of almost 58 million. The country is the tenth most important market for Swedish sales. Italy has a fairly good economy at the moment and the forecast tells of an increasing strength during coming years. Despite all of this, Sweden is exporting a fairly small amount of wood to Italy. Only around 2,3 % of all Sweden?s wood export goes to Italy.

This graduation paper is based on my interest for wood and its different tonal quality?s.After some time of thinking I decided to write my paper on the tonal difference between two of the most common woods in guitars, East Indian Rosewood and European Maple. I had built two identical guitars before my graduation paper in which the difference was the wood the back and sides were made of. One was being made of East Indian Rosewood and the other being made of European Maple.I chose to speak with a number of people with different angle of approach to the two kinds of wood and its tonal difference and quality?s.

This thesis deals with different methods for measuring moisture-related dimensional changes ofwood. Typically relative humidity is measured to determine if the ambient climate around anobject is harmful to it or not. Values between 40 to 65% RH are recommended for hygroscopicmaterials. To know how a wooden object actually reacts to changes in the surroundingenvironment requires methods that involve the object itself. Because of the wood anisotropy,differences in wood structure, finishes and other restraints, it is not always possible to predict themovements.This paper addresses various measurement methods, primarily methods that have been testedin the field of conservation, with examples of their use.