The hot-air/hot-steam process was used for the first time as a combined pre-pressing and pre-heating system for the production of medium-density fiberboards (MDF) at the pilot scale. Pre-heating systems are designed to pre-heat fiber mats before pressing by hot-presses. Using such techniques, pressing times are reduced significantly and the board properties are influenced positively; both are e...

Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP'ing) is one of several processes used for consolidating porous materials (such as metal powders) to high density. The equations describing the HIP'ing system dynamics are immensely complicated and highly nonlinear, thus complicating any controller design for the system. Further complications arise due to the fact that one of the system's states, grain size, cannot be...