About

Rosie Sargent leads the wood drying programme at Scion. This research, conducted in partnership with the wood processing industry, has significant impact on the value and performance of sawn timber from radiata pine.

Qualifications

BE (Hons) Chemical and Process Engineering. University of Canterbury - 2001

Research capabilities

Timber drying, wood-water relationships, wood science, thermal modification, wood modification, wood densification, supercritical CO₂ dewatering

Career highlights

• Technical lead for Scion’s Wood Processing project for the Specialty Wood Products Partnership
• Involved in early research into thermal modification of radiata pine, now leading research into other species
• Leading the High Value Processing and Fit for in-use Performance projects to improve the performance of products made from New Zealand grown wood species.
• Characterising wood properties under challenging conditions relevant to wood processing operations.

Selected papers

Sargent R, Kutnar A, Mikuljan, M (2023) Densification of New Zealand-grown Eucalyptus species: Effect of grain orientation and densification process on wood properties. Wood and Fiber Science 55(2) pp. 143-156

Sargent R (2022) Evaluating dimensional stability in modified wood: An experimental comparison of test methods. Forests 13(4) art. no. 613

Sargent R, Lenth CA (2023) Strength and Stiffness of radiata pine at elevated temperatures: A complete data set. Wood Material Science and Engineering 18(3) pp. 986-994

Haque MN, Sargent R (2008) Standard and superheated steam schedules for radiata pine single-board drying: Model prediction and actual measurements. Drying Technology 26(2) pp. 186-191