Abstract

Mehmet Eker, H. OÄ?uz Ã?oban and H. Hulusi Acar

In timber harvesting process, the debarking activity time covers more than 50% of the total production time especially for coniferous trees. The debarking operations are usually carried out by forest villagers with an axe because of the abundance of labor force and subvention applied for forest villagers. Recently, in the face of labor shortage, in order to shorten harvesting time and to accelerate the operations, chainsaw mounted log debarking attachments has also been used. The aim of the study was to obtain information about time consumption and productivity of debarking with log debarker. Debarking time with log debarker belonging to Brutian pine logs was found to be 11.71 min/m3 and the work productivity was 5.12 m3 /h. It was determined that the use of log debarker could be achieved; the time saving by 80% compared with conventional debarking method (with axe) and increased the work productivity up to 5 times. It can provide various advantages in terms of prevention of bark beetles damages, fast and fresh product supply, reduce dependence on the number of human resources and improvement the production rate.