Context

The stabilization of wood, particularly with regard to outdoor weathering, is the subject of a great deal of research following decisions recently taken to limit or even ban the chemical stabilization processes used until now. These techniques are known to be particularly harmful to the environment, and sometimes even to people.

In this dossier, we present a process recently developed at CEA/ARC-Nucléart to stabilize the dimensional stability of wood when subjected to significant variations in air humidity. The main advantage of this technique is its simplicity, since it is limited to a simple...