Process for drying timber

Claim 1

A process for drying timber prone to checking caused by shrinkage induced stress in a drying tunnel, having an inlet and outlet, a first section adjacent the inlet of the tunnel and a second longer section adjacent the outlet of the tunnel through which each of said sections the timber is fed forward through a plurality of steps while being permeated by a drying air with a temperature below 80° C. transported primarily in the longitudinal direction of the tunnel, said drying tunnel provided with a drying medium divided into circulating substreams passing through each of said sections with the speed of the stream passing through the first section being higher than the speed of the stream passing through the second section, characterized in that one of said substreams is caused to flow through the first section of the tunnel in the direction of motion of the timber so that said one substream initially contacts the timber last fed into the tunnel and thereafter successively contacts timber that has dried a longer period and the other substream flows through the second section of the tunnel counter to the direction of motion of the timber so that said other substream initially contacts timber that has been dried the longest period and thereafter successively timber that has been dried a shorter period and the speed at which the timber flows through the drying tunnel is set so that when the timber reaches the juncture of the sections where the air streams meet there is a relatively low psychrometric difference between the timber and the air streams compared to the increasing psychrometric differences on either side of this juncture resulting in lower stress peaks and increased quality of timbers without change in drying time after which said substreams are thereafter conditioned and recirculated.