Thermal decontamination of railway sleepers for recycling. Changes in mechanical wood properties

Ganne-Chédeville, Christelle; Mayer, Ingo; Ropp, Julien; Pichelin, Frédéric (2010). Thermal decontamination of railway sleepers for recycling. Changes in mechanical wood properties In: World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2010).

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Old creosote-treated sleepers are considered as a problematic waste and their use is strictly regulated. It has been shown that decontamination by a conduction thermal treatment up to 220°C under vacuum conditions and longer than 20 hours allows a significant PAHs removal from the wood tissue. After decontamination the sleepers could be re-used in a solid form with a low impact on the environment. In order to evaluate the possible applications of decontaminated wood railway sleepers, their mechanical properties were investigated before and after decontamination by non-destructive tests with ultrasonic wave's propagation and penetration resistance methods. From the results achieved, the process does hardly damage the material and must be improved to allow structural utilisations with decontaminated railway sleepers.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	School of Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering School of Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering > Institute for Materials and Wood Technology BFH Centres and strategic thematic fields > BFH Centre for Wood - Resource and Material
Name:	Ganne-Chédeville, Christelle0000-0003-1000-6759; Mayer, Ingo; Ropp, Julien and Pichelin, Frédéric0000-0003-3856-6707
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General) T Technology > T Technology (General) T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) T Technology > TF Railroad engineering and operation T Technology > TP Chemical technology
ISBN:	978 1 622 76175 3
Language:	English
Submitter:	Christelle Ganne-Chédeville
Date Deposited:	21 Apr 2020 15:58
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2021 21:45
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Wood decontamination Railway sleepers Creosote Thermal treatment Non destructivetests
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.9462
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/9462