Super Wood: Transforming natural wood into high-performance material

[mike_t_12]

I was looking through the June 2018 edition of EAA/Sport Aviation and read an article titled “Super Wood: Transforming natural wood into high-performance material.” Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have created a process called “Densification” that apparently can “engineer wood into a product that is more than 10 times stronger and tougher than natural wood, creating a material that is as strong as steel but six times lighter.” The 1^st step of the two-part process removes approximately 50 percent of the lignin in the wood and the 2^nd step is hot pressing the wood to remove “…the pores (open channels) that are mechanical defects in terms of strength and toughness. The compression process makes the wood five times thinner than its original size.” The process apparently works with a variety of different types of wood.

There is a UMD spinoff company named “Inventwood” but there’s not much information on their website.

Here are some links that have similar information as the Sport Aviation article –

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01371-0

https://eng.umd.edu/news/story/super-wood-could-replace-steel

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180207151829.htm


I think this would be pretty exciting if it ever becomes economically available. On the other hand, it almost sounds too good to be true? Is anyone else familiar with this?

[FONT=&amp]Mike[/FONT]

 

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[mike_t_12]

 

[cluttonfred]

 

[lr27]