Wood chippers are specialized equipment for producing wood chips, widely used in the material preparation stage of industries such as textiles, papermaking, pulp making, and engineered wood products.
In the 1870s, the first wood chippers produced and used in developed forestry countries in Northern Europe and North America had only 3-4 cutting blades. In the 1940s, multi-blade chippers with 6 or more cutting blades appeared. In the 1950s, a new type of multi-blade chipper with a spiral cutter head emerged, further improving the performance of wood chippers.
In the 1970s, the Forestry Machinery Research Institute of the Ministry of Forestry of China developed a mobile combined chipper that can simultaneously complete chipping, wood chip screening, and pneumatic conveying of qualified wood chips to a loading bin or transport vehicle, thus greatly improving the productivity of wood chipping.
The manufacture of wood chippers worldwide now focuses on improving the cutting mechanism, the quality of the blades, and the mounting methods to reduce sharpening and blade changing time. The global decline in forest resources has spurred the development of mobile chippers in logging areas; and the adoption of combined logging area chippers and whole-tree chippers will further improve economic efficiency.
