Graduate Researcher
Humboldt State University
1 Harpst Street, Arcata, California 95521-8299
(707) 826-4083
Heesung Woo is currently working on a Master’s research project focusing on forest operations at Humboldt State University (HSU). He will be graduating with his second Master’s degree in Forest Operations from HSU this December. Before attending HSU, Heesung had six years of education experience in Forest Management for his first MS and BS degree at Kangwon National University (KNU) in South Korea. From a project in which he conducted a study at KNU in South Korea, he was able to predict the amount of timber products potentially producible from the study area while sustaining a productive forest ecosystem using a goal programming method. At HSU, Heesung has evaluated the effect of two felling methods on skyline yarding productivity using a grapple carriage.
Most recently, in the summer of 2014, he has worked on the Waste to Wisdom project. His current research project is to evaluate the use of different types of screening machines (star and deck screeners) and the type of ground material used (hogfuel and chip) that will best reduce fuel consumption, increase productivity, and find particle size distributions that work best in biomass conversion technologies. However, the particles produced using the current grinding technologies do not fully meet the specifications of the project’s mobile biomass conversion technologies (MBCT). By incorporating new screening technologies into biomass operations, a new product quality can be found that also meets the MBCT specifications. For example, new screening technologies combined with hog fuel and chip materials produced from new grinding equipment such as a disc chipper, can be used to sort comminuted materials into different size categories (e.g. less than 3/8, 3/8<2-inch and +2inch minimum sizes). By incorporating these new technologies and best results into the current forest residue recovery operations plan, an improved utilization of forest residues in bioenergy and bio-based products can be developed. Based on Heesung's background knowledge, he wants to develop actual biomass-considered operation systems. Regular harvesting operations have typically produced a lot of logging residues and only focused on merchantable timbers. One of the biggest concerns to using logging slash materials is that there's not enough to make a profit. To optimize profit, a lot of variables should to be considered, but also scale of operations vary from site to site.
