Crushed wood is stronger than steel • Hacker News Board

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#61

Post by burger_moon » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #39

jacquesm wrote: post #6

The most expensive wooden floors have the end grain exposed facing upwards and this is then compressed down, much like the top of a good quality butchers block. Those floors are just about indestructible. The heavier such floors are used the stronger they get! The wood in the article is compressed crosswise to the grain (so they get thinner rather than shorter), using the original planks as the raw organic material t…

Do you mind sharing a picture of this done right? The end grain wood floor pics I found on Google look mostly hideous to me.

This used to be very common for machine shops to have wood floors, I found an article detailing it with some pictures. I worked in a couple shops that had wood floors, they were nothing to look at, it was an industrial setting after all. https://web.pa.msu.edu/services/machine-shop/shopfloor.htm

At Amazon in the new Day 1 building their main staircase to the lobby is built from wood ends and it is done very nicely. It looks great. There's probably pictures online of that.

edit, I found one picture from a geekwire article. Unfortunately you can't see the grain, the picture is from a far. https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/20161107...

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#62

Post by platz » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

beobab wrote: post #15

gonvaled wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mini black hole, evaporating fast unless you feed it faster!

Annnnd... Now I'm reading about black holes, no-hair theorems, how zero mass particles behave around black holes. Goodbye productivity! :)

https://youtu.be/_8bhtEgB8Mo

Black hole firewalls is a favorite conundrum of mine.

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#63

Post by tekkk » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

Didn't Hydraulic Press Channel do something similar with crushing a paper sheet until it turned stonish? Well not that similar but it was an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#64

Post by platz » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

anvandare wrote: post #51

jahnu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any interesting trivia figures for that? Like how long would it take to evaporate a black hole with an event horizon the size of a basketball, golf ball, grain of sand, whatever?

You can play around with it here: http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/ * basketball (radius ~ 12cm): 1.4e54 years * golf ball (radius ~ 2cm): 6.5e51 years * grain of sand (radius ~ 1mm): 8.1e47 years So all of them "so ludicrously long that these are just numbers". To put it in human terms: * a black hole with a mass of 70 kilograms will evaporate in 0.028 nanoseconds * a black hole that will evaporate in 80 years has a…

We haven't actually observed any Hawking radiation yet, mind you

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#65

Post by briffle » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 2:55 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #8

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #2

The title is completely false. Metals are used for their material properties more than just strength but homogeneous strength and stiffness (in all directions) and tolerance to a wide range of environmental conditions (thermal and moisture cycling) Not to mention ease of manufacturing. The material described in the article will never make it out of the lab.

Engineered wood has been a thing for over 100 years. Wood has a lot of desirable properties that make it a good construction material (fire resistance for instance is much better than steel). This article is definitely missing the wood for the trees to some extent, but it is an interesting development and even if the gain isn't going to be quite as large as indicated and there are some serious questions about whether…

Portland is building a 5 story building with Cross Laminated Beams (all Wood, no steel structure). Its not this material, but is incredibly strong.

A 12 story wood building is also being planned in Portland (mentioned in article)

http://www.capitalpress.com/Oregon/20171005/nations-largest-...

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#66

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

thecatspaw wrote: post #54

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fallen tree in damp conditions rots down in a year or so. Seems pretty biodegradable. Your second sentence I have no problem with.

a fallen tree will also easily get overrun by bugs and animals and does not have a closed surface, making it prone to rot

Isn't that biodegrading? Surely almost anything can be cared for to prevent biodegrading.

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#67

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 3:03 PM UTC

mr_overalls wrote: post #60

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fallen tree in damp conditions rots down in a year or so. Seems pretty biodegradable. Your second sentence I have no problem with.

Yeah, "decent care" means "kept away from moisture, fire, and bugs." Such care can be difficult in the long term, but yields results like the beautiful 700 year-old woodwork in this English cathedral. (And of course the comments mention the Buddhist temple Hōryū-ji.) http://blog.longnow.org/02009/01/12/how-long-can-wood-last/

I agree completely. The only part I disagree with its the claim wood is "barely biodegradable". Almost anything can be preserved.

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#68

Post by dghughes » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

cdsboy wrote: post #57

bpyne wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to go on a tangent, but your comment reminded me of a book I read about the Chinese culinary culture pre-revolution. Chinese chefs had, and may still have, wooden cutting boards that were conditioned somehow such that they were as hard as stone. (There was also an implication that they resisted bacteria unlike normal wood boards when not scoured properly.) These boards were passed down from generation to genera…

Doesn't having a cutting board as hard as stone defeat the purpose of having a cutting board?

Isn't the point of a cutting board to protect the counter top from the knife, mobility (move chopped food to another location) and being easy to clean? As opposed to a flat counter top which can get marred with marks, can't move, can be cleaned but not thrown in a sink.

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#69

Post by danso » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

waytogo wrote: post #38

Super interesting piece and as somebody who is interested in many things I appreciate such articles. But seeing this on #1 feels a bit off on HN. Is there a slight possibility that the feed is sometimes curated (eg through different voting powers)?

"Super interesting" sounds like a good metric for top-voted entries, especially at 4AM (PST)

Re: Crushed wood is stronger than steel

#70

Post by dsfyu404ed » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 3:16 PM UTC

burger_moon wrote: post #61

euroclydon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind sharing a picture of this done right? The end grain wood floor pics I found on Google look mostly hideous to me.

This used to be very common for machine shops to have wood floors, I found an article detailing it with some pictures. I worked in a couple shops that had wood floors, they were nothing to look at, it was an industrial setting after all. https://web.pa.msu.edu/services/machine-shop/shopfloor.htm At Amazon in the new Day 1 building their main staircase to the lobby is built from wood ends and it is done very nicely. I…

>This used to be very common for machine shops to have wood floors

That is done because wood is soft and if you drop a tool or part on the floor it's far less likely to be damaged. Wood has been superseded by (usually vinyl IIRC) tile and/or rubber/plastic mats in a lot of places.