Nicolas André
Post-Doctoral Research Associate

Nicolas André is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the UT Forest Products Center.  He received his B.S. in Civil Engineering, M.S. and Ph.D. in Wood Science from the University of Bordeaux, France.  His Ph.D. was focused on developing a method to assess the structural condition of heritage timber structures based on finite element modeling coupled to NDE tools.  A validation of the method was performed on a bell-tower.

Nicolas joined the Forest Products Center in September 2003.  His research focuses on developing Near-Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy sensors for the panel industry (MDF, OSB and particleboard) that predict physical and mechanical properties of the furnish and/or panel.  Part of this project is to create a complete software package with Visual Basic (VB) that can be used to build Partial Least-Squares (PLS) calibration models, predict the properties real-time and merge these properties with the existing process control systems.  He also used NIR spectroscopy to monitor the load conditions in wood beams.  He helped creating a two-dimensional (2D) correlation analysis graphical user interface.  He was also involved in the improvement (data processing and linear stage integration) of a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) system at ORNL.