Material Properties of Balsa Wood

I already open those site,but it is not helping me much. But, anyway..thanks a lot for give a try and helping me. Thank you.

Try this site. Or check out some of these sites.

Balsa wood because of its exceptional weight to strength to properties is used to air craft construction. The materials used for aviation need mandatory compliance to relevant air borne material specifications. Balsa is covered under MIL-B-2747 and MIL-S-7998., US standards. I am confidant that these specs will provide you all the property data you have been looking for.

I don't think Balsa is used except for models. My acquaintance with it is in the Glass reinforced plastic fields and especially in boat building where it is used in an end grain configuration. It gives a very strong and insulating core and is designed to be able to accommodate curved surfaces such as hulls as well as bulkheads. As it consists of small units (1 to 2" square) the glue lines lines added to the end-grain facility add to the waterproofing ability. The last info I had was from the Ecuadorian Balsa supplier but http://www.cstsales.com/end_grain_balsa.html seems to be a good source of info.

Unfortunately using the term "Balsa" is like asking for the properties of "wood". Balsa, unlike many woods comes in a very broad range of densities and strengths. The best source for information would be a large Balsa supplier. I know it is used for load bearing insulation for large cryogenic storage tanks. If you can find a source for that type of material I sure they can give you the properties of specific densities and types of balsa.

I remember from my earlier years that I was surprised by the number of different densities were available.

Probably depends upon where you grow it - in Ecuador right on the equator, hot and wet it probably grows very quickly. I was told that a Mozambican variety grows from seed to maturity in 5 years.

As a bit of useless information Thor Heyerdahl used Ecuadorian Balsa for the Kon Tiki raft which crossed the pacific.

www.matweb.com

-certified by ASTM ASME SAE physical properties.

Yeah. 'Ave a look in Kempe's Engineers' Yearbook, any edition. If you can't find a copy there's a couple in my skip extensive mail-order book library. Is fifty quid OK? <Splutter>.

Hello,

Can I ask a stupid question? What is the end use in mind.

I spent a lot of time guiding a middleschool team project using balsa wood. So I have hands on experience. It is an amazing material. I won't bore you with detail other than to say experimentation allowed us to win a challenge to constuct a tower ~ 2" square x exactly 8 "long through which a 2" solid gage rod was passed. A max weight of 15 grams of Balsa wood was allowed.

The structure resembled a power transmission tower but was straight. It was then subjected to crush testing, each short side held up 50 lbs. Then standing on the 2" base a weight of 50 lbs was seated and more weight added until the tower failed.

Our tower weighed 14.8 grams and at 186 lbs the table on which it sat for testing broke and subquently the tower. The key was using high density uprights and the super light cross members and good superglue.

Hope this helps.