Super Wood

Yeah but how much $$ is it? Does that make it waterproof? If it's 10x stronger than steel, how do you cut it?

With an 11 x stronger blade .

Cut it before you compress it!

Easy!

Would make good flight arrows.
It's been done before without the addition of chemicals to toughen up wooden arrows.
Del

1/5 original size = 5x original density....

Yes but what kind of wood...? I'd like to see that with hard rock maple, it wood take some major tonnage...haha but then balsa wood, well I could do that with a pair of pliers...Wood hardener has been around for a long time, the problem has always been penetration, I always use thinner first then the hardener, but I've only used it a couple of times, and mostly to shore up a base for coating and as a water repellent...It seems to me some sort of vacuum chamber to force penetration would be needed....sounds expensive...

Does rock maple bend nails, like seasoned eucalypts?

Recently we had a 10 storey building raised, using glue-lam timber, in Brissie,

coords 27.5S, 153E. Probably 2nd or 3rd in the world.

I'll go get a photo if I can remember to do it.

I saw the title and thought this was more spam for a male enhancing pill.

I'll mark you OT when I quit laughing.

Balsa wood? Now THAT would be something!

I am going to order some balsa wood today, I already have the wood hardener....Suggestions on how to achieve 100% penetration wood be appreciated...pressure, vacuum, heat???....maybe just soak in a sealed container?

Penetration will depend on viscosity of the solution, wood cell structure and cure time.

Technically, vacuum impregnation then pressure under heat cure. Heating the sealant first will further reduce viscosity, but reduce cure time.

The porosity of the wood is also a consideration.

http://www.wood-database.com/balsa/

Ten time stronger... what does that really mean... and what properties does that give up.

if you gain something, you have to give up something.

one tends to gain tensile strength, but then lose ductility.

I would think that stronger means shear strength...

http://www.portlandbolt.com/technical/faqs/calculating-strength/

Curious..

As boat builder , wood worker etc, every attempt to increase density results in extra weight..

How does this compression not include the weight increase?

Makes aircraft and boat building moot, as there are other materials, along with carbon fibres , that are much more efficient..

Maybe I am missing something..?

It will be used for civil construction, e.g. buildings, bridges, where weight may not be so important

Good point.

I do remember touring the Aircraft Carrier, USS Forrester, and noted the wooden landing decks...It was mentioned that the give of the wood from repeated landings allowed the deck to remain viable longer than a steel structure. Not able to verify..

May have been a cost thing, or a supply problem at time of construction.

You are probably referring to the USS Forrestal, CV-59, in ordered in 1951, commissioned in 1955, decomissioned in 1993, and broken-up in 2014.

Aircraft carrier landing decks were typically wooden in that time-frame, in spite of (lessons-learnable) from the Battle of Midway, 1942...

Actually, I was totally off. The ship I am referring to is the USS Hornet, that picked up the Apollo. Age does that, sometimes

Good tour, tho', in Alameda, with a caring staff that is still working on the maintenance and restoration.

Compression alone only increases density, not weight. But adding something to the mix like a chemical hardener will increase mass and weight.

For boatbuilding, the buoyant force is dependent upon the density of the displaced liquid, not the density of the hull material.

Is it fireproof? Could it be used in home-building?

How come no further developments on this in 10 years?

... so, this is 10x stronger than *natural wood*, and *as strong* as steel, and lighter than steel, and (supposedly) cheaper than carbon fiber.

• "It is as strong as steel, but six times lighter."
• "a specific strength higher than that of most structural metals and alloys, making it a low-cost, high-performance, lightweight alternative."
• "It's also comparable [in strength] to carbon fibre, but much less expensive."

Other articles on this process:

• More-in-depth article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stronger-than-steel-able-to-stop-a-speeding-bullet-mdash-it-rsquo-s-super-wood/
• Article with picture and short video: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/superdense-wood-lightweight-strong-steel

Articles about another (similar) product:

• Also, an article with a bunch of pictures of a "super wood" bridge: http://www.contemporist.com/akkerwinde-bridge-by-oak-architects/
• And an article with a brief explanation of the strengthening process: https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/wood-bridge-in-netherlands-as-strong-as-steel-and-a-lot-prettier.html

I read about the 'similar' product - acetylated wood. Not compressed is the big difference. Instead it doesn't shrink when it dries. It is as strong as "very dry wood" according to this article:

https://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i32/Making-Wood-Last-Forever-Acetylation.html

Very durable and dimensionally stable (100 yrs?). The technology has been around since the 30's but did not succeed in the marketplace in past attempts. May do better this time around, due to changes in the market, but still... very expensive cw the competition.

One significant drawback - have to use stainless steel fasteners because residual acetic acid will corrode standard products. So wood lasts but nails rot.

It's about as flammable as ordinary wood, may give off some acetic acid fumes though. Recyclable into other cellulose products.

Now cross breed it with these species,.. and we may have something

^{I don't believe this is genetics, but created with a form....}

Weird, but a far cry from the integral trees!

It's an audio book that some geek put on youtube, but not bad.

About 30 years ago, in Readers digest I think, where it was growing square,... I think now by the looks of the grain pattern, I think there was some type of training or forms used.

or the picture is digitally modified... if that's the case... see Doorman's response.

Never mind...

That makes quarter-sawn easy.

What is the chemistry of the wood hardener solution? Does the processed wood rot? Or what kind of legacy does it leave as a material I wonder?

I also wonder if it will be 10X more expensive than steel. Compression to 1/5 of size is going to take some power! (Unless it's balsa of course! )

It's fine, until some nerk tries to weld it.

Easy.Use Weldwood.

Also, how (termite)-resistant is it?...

Does it have a combustion-point higher, or lower, than that of steel?... Aluminum?...

When it does burn, what toxic chemicals are released?...

Anybody that has worked with hardwoods knows how difficult it can be and how hard on saw blades it is....you can't drive a nail through it, it dulls blades so fast you can't believe it...so there is such a thing as too hard to work with....this then limits the market to niche level...and why 2x4's are pine and not oak...even pine hardens over time, try driving a nail in 30 year old pine...

30 year old lumber may be harder because the trees grew more slowly. This is due to competition for sunlight in mature forests. The growth rings are narrow and the wood density is higher, even though the species is the same. Modern lumber is mostly produced in managed "farms" with controlled spacing of saplings and a faster growth to harvest.

What if the pine was chopped down an in your yard for 30 years?

That would depend on where the tree was, and if it lay on the ground.

In most places where Pine trees grow, after 30 years the only thing left would be the heart wood, the super dense, resin rich inner part of the tree. The rest would have rotted or been eaten by bugs.

So we are talking about the difference between a 30 year old pine (growing time), chopped down and used instantly versus a pine tree (unknown growth time) chopped down and aged for 30 years before approaching it with a nail, saw, drill and so forth.

The southeastern part of the United States was once covered in Long Leaf pines.

They were very hard,very heavy,resinous and slow growing wood.

Some structures from the 1800 are stills standing.

They were often tapped like maple trees to collect the resin to make turpentine and tar.

The longleaf pines are very rare now due to over harvesting,but the remnants can be found in the woods.Some are over a hundred years old.

Locally,they call it Fat Lighter.It is very hard and resinous,and will burn very hot and long.It will never rot.

Southern Yellow Pine (marked SYP in the lumber trade ) is another very hard pine that is difficult to put a nail into.

Fir is normally used in home construction because it is much softer and easier to work with.

The lumber industry brought in a short leaf,loblolly pine because it grows faster,and they have cross pollinated with the native species and has literally ruined them.

The longleaf pine is classified as Endangered (EN) on the IUCN Red List

Some farms are now growing long leaf pines for the pine straw,which sells for a premium and is used for landscaping.

When I was about 14-15 years old, made some furniture (stereo cabine) in shop class at school, we had rough sawn oak at home that my dad said I could use. Had it when my dad was a kid, so it was at least 40 years old.

Whether it was sawing or planing it down, I had to take smaller cuts, because it literal drew the motor down. Shop instructor came over, and ask what the hell I was doing, and I explained to him and where I got the wood. He inspected the wood and shook his head because it was so hard,... like it was petrified.

My shop teacher was very well versed, he wrote quite a few woodworking books for Sears (craftsman). He was also a golden glove boxer.

Anyways, the grain looked like oak,.., but could have been hickory also. That was over 40 years ago,... still have that cabinet.

Or 30 year old oak,mahogany, or Eucalyptus

Not even counting the exotic Brazilian hardwoods, such as Mangarus

Add Teak to that list.

The article didn't mention that the lignin content must reduced by about half through the use of caustic chemicals and/or solvents.

Engineered Lumber: Logs are rotated and shaved to produce veneer sheets, cut into strips, glued, stacked to produce layers of highly parallel fibers, heated and compressed into beams or pillars.

This new process sounds like it could produce the next version of engineered lumber. By preprocessing the veneer with chemicals, use of glue resins are eliminated since the remaining lignin is reactive.

The next step would be to greatly increase pressure during laminating.

Removing the lignin to make more durable wood... that surprised me a lot. Since lignins are the hardest thing to break down, and keeps natural wood from rotting in a hurry.

Both of the processes described in this thread use chemicals - acid or base - to partly break down lignin and hemicellulose, leaving mostly cellulose to work on in the next steps.

I wonder if they could skip the first step, and just use the chemistry to make really strong straw.

I wonder if they could skip the first step, and just use the chemistry to make really strong straw.

We make liquid smoke where we decompose the smoke through pyrolysis and break it down further into individual compounds using a wiped film evaporated.

With lignin being a complex polymer and large part of making liquid smoke but eventual goes to a waste product as tar, which we then use as fuel.

And now to your question, the answer is yes, but the energy input would not make it financially feasible, at least at this point in technology.

and also btw,... lignin is a binder that gives the strength of holding (binding with cross-linked between the different plant polysaccharides) the cells together

How strong is it when exposed to Kryptonite?