TL9+ Wood [Ultratech]

[AlexanderHowl]

So, I just read an article in Scientific American about how scientists have figured out how to increase the strength of wood by 50x (making it as strong as carbon fibers) by a process that triples its density at 5% to cost of making carbon fibers. It is called densified wood. What types of applications do you think an advanced society would use densified wood for?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

So, I just read an article in Scientific American about how scientists have figured out how to increase the strength of wood by 50x (making it as strong as carbon fibers) by a process that triples its density at 5% to cost of making carbon fibers. It is called densified wood. What types of applications do you think an advanced society would use densified wood for?

Probably not very much. Those numbers are nonsense (or I suppose more charitably measured against some particularly unimpressive wood, it comes in a lot of varieties). The best case for densified wood is you remove everything but the cellulose and collapse that to a solid block - which of course gives you the same properties as a block of a cellulose plastic. That's not a new material, but generally hasn't found many applications.

What people are actually hoping for from densified wood is that it will be cheap. Cellulose bioplastics are on the more expensive end of plastics, if they were dirt cheap, they probably would have more applications, not as wonder materials but for the same kind of large scale applications we see other cheap materials (like say wood, or concrete, or mild steel) used for.

[Varyon]

It would be used the same way wood is, as a structural material, it would just be stronger. It probably wouldn't have a high demand for furniture, being heavy for its volume, but if it's more resilient than normal wood it may replace wood paneling (for floors, walls, etc). It's likely to be more aesthetically pleasing than steel and the like (provided the compression doesn't eliminate the grain), of course, which will make it good for visible supports.

It's probably harder to burn than normal wood (less surface area), but is still a fire hazard, unlike most metals. That's something to consider when using it for buildings (or vehicles).

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Varyon

It would be used the same way wood is, as a structural material, it would just be stronger.

Is it able to be moulded into a curve? If so, it may be preferential for particular schools of architectural fashion, as a "more natural" alternative to steel framing.

Q: Is it more energy/resource hungry than steel?

Originally Posted by Varyon

... It probably wouldn't have a high demand for furniture, being heavy for its volume...

If it can be bent, and it has a residual amount of spring greater than that of steel, IMHO it would be great for making the framing for chairs.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

From the recent reports, the laminated densified wood is as strong and tough as high quality steel at the same thickness, but it is 1/3 the mass and costs the same per mass (three times as much as steel of the same thickness).

Those numbers don't add up. If it's the same cost per unit mass and 1/3rd the density, it should be 1/3rd the cost per unit thickness. Did you perhaps mean the same cost per unit thickness, and thus 3x the cost per unit mass? As good* as steel, and the same cost but 1/3rd the weight would allow it to rapidly replace steel in a lot of areas, assuming it lives up to the hype.

*It's arguably better, as it won't rust. Wood rot could potentially be an issue, but it might not cost too much to treat it to prevent that.

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

If it can be bent, and it has a residual amount of spring greater than that of steel, IMHO it would be great for making the framing for chairs.

I was thinking more along the lines of all-wood furniture. While it could work for such, I suspect it would be comically thin in order to see a weight savings. As a framing material it should work just fine, however.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

If it can be bent, and it has a residual amount of spring greater than that of steel, IMHO it would be great for making the framing for chairs.

Weight for weight it might not be any better than wood, as a rod of the same weight would only have 58% of the diameter, and resistance to torque scales with cross-section * tensile strength * diameter. The other question would be cosmetic; people make solid wood chairs (as opposed to things with tubes) for appearances, even though it's heavier.

[ericthered]

Framing a one story house is usually done with cheap timber, framing a larger building with steel costs x2 to x10 times more per square foot. This product could be a nice cost saver on big apartment buildings in the three to six story range.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Weight for weight it might not be any better than wood...

Aha. Very interesting. Ta muchly.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Probably not very much. Those numbers are nonsense (or I suppose more charitably measured against some particularly unimpressive wood, it comes in a lot of varieties). The best case for densified wood is you remove everything but the cellulose and collapse that to a solid block - which of course gives you the same properties as a block of a cellulose plastic. That's not a new material, but generally hasn't found many applications.

What people are actually hoping for from densified wood is that it will be cheap. Cellulose bioplastics are on the more expensive end of plastics, if they were dirt cheap, they probably would have more applications, not as wonder materials but for the same kind of large scale applications we see other cheap materials (like say wood, or concrete, or mild steel) used for.

From the recent reports, the laminated densified wood is as strong and tough as high quality steel at the same thickness, but it is 1/3 the mass and costs the same per mass (three times as much as steel of the same thickness). It is much much tougher than plastic because of the chemical and mechanical changes created by the process.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

From the recent reports, the laminated densified wood is as strong and tough as high quality steel at the same thickness, but it is 1/3 the mass and costs the same per mass (three times as much as steel of the same thickness). It is much much tougher than plastic because of the chemical and mechanical changes created by the process.

The normally correct thing to do when you see numbers compared to steel is to immediately ignore them, because it always heavily depends on what properties you're talking about, what sort of steel you're comparing to, and steel isn't terribly impressive for a lot of properties, so using that comparison mostly means the person talking wants to sound impressive.