Cracking degrades wood appearance, reduces the strength grade, increase the durability risk, and should be avoided as much as possible.
Coating can be used, but the effect is limited and the persistence was not good.
Previous studies proved that thermal modification reduces the sensitivity of wood to moisture and decreases water diffusion coefficient. Accordingly, can the cracking resistance of solid wood under varying humility conditions be improved by thermal treatment using relatively low temperature, that may not obviously reduce the strength grade of solid wood.
Unfortunately not. It should be noted that the cracks you are talking about is due to differential shrinkage in the wood as it loses moisture especially at low relative humidity. Since wood is dimensionally unstable in the presence of moisture being a hygroscopic material, thermal modification at low temperature may not be effective. To improve its dimensional stability, thermal modification needs to be done at higher temperature. If the treatment is controlled it is possible not to have cracks, improve its dimensional stability and prevention of crack development through differential shrinkage but most likely a decrease in some mechanical properties.
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