ABSTRACT
Conventional methods of lumber drying such as dehumidifi cation drying or hot-air drying are energy-intensive and time-consuming, mostly because of the low permeability of solid wood. High-temperature drying can shorten the drying time, but it may result in drying defects such as discoloration, degradation, or checking. Aside from a pretreatment before drying such as ponding (Unligil, 1972) or explosion (Hayashi et al., 1994; Noji et al., 2001), one of the methods to accelerate drying is dielectric (radio frequency [RF]) drying in combination with hot-air drying (Miller, 1971; Kobayashi et al., 1999; Resch and Gautsch, 2001; Cai and Hayashi, 2001).
