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Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
11–20 of 30 posts
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#12So it's fiberglass except it uses thin strips of bleached wood in place of the glass fiber substrate? Also, being lighter than glass (presumably by unit volume?) is a pretty low bar. Glass is heavy. "Stronger" is so vague it's almost meaningless. Stronger under tension? Compression? Flex? Impact resistance? What?
This is a clever variation on impregnation resins, which aren’t now and are getting more and more popular. It will depend on the timber and treatment, but expect higher tensile & compressive strength then the wood, plus more hardness and stability.
This would be very interesting for structural windows and likely much cheaper than glass in similar size. Probably better thermal insulation too.
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#13Hair thin anything can look transparent though. I seems to be paper thin. As building products go, I believe rot resistant glass infused wood as a substitute for pressure treated wood is a more useful product specially in humid regions.
even if it's not completely transparent and can not be used in a window, it could still be useful as a wall material to let some of the daylight into the house.
Especially since it appears to diffuse the light, which is actually desirable in some cases.
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#14Hair thin anything can look transparent though. I seems to be paper thin. As building products go, I believe rot resistant glass infused wood as a substitute for pressure treated wood is a more useful product specially in humid regions.
even if it's not completely transparent and can not be used in a window, it could still be useful as a wall material to let some of the daylight into the house.
Looks like they worked with 1-1.5 mm balsa. sheets. You could make this into plywood. Would be interesting to test this with denser timber.
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#15Nile Red did a great video on his attempts to reproduce these results: https://youtu.be/x1H-323d838
I've only recently come across Nile Red, and I highly endorse his videos. I somehow managed to spend over half an hour watching him extract water from epsom salt, and even though it was nearly the equivalent of watching paint dry, it still remained fascinating to watch.
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#16So it's fiberglass except it uses thin strips of bleached wood in place of the glass fiber substrate? Also, being lighter than glass (presumably by unit volume?) is a pretty low bar. Glass is heavy. "Stronger" is so vague it's almost meaningless. Stronger under tension? Compression? Flex? Impact resistance? What?
This is a clever variation on impregnation resins, which aren’t now and are getting more and more popular. It will depend on the timber and treatment, but expect higher tensile & compressive strength then the wood, plus more hardness and stability. This would be very interesting for structural windows and likely much cheaper than glass in similar size. Probably better thermal insulation too.
I'd worry about the effects of UV on the resins, if replacing windows with it. Would likely need a coating to prevent discoloration.
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#17Hair thin anything can look transparent though. I seems to be paper thin. As building products go, I believe rot resistant glass infused wood as a substitute for pressure treated wood is a more useful product specially in humid regions.
From the article, the process involves 1mm thick pieces of wood. But it's reasonable to assume that a thicker plywood could then be made out of those 1mm thick pieces and would maintain a lot of the translucency.
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#18Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#19I feel like I've seen versions of this news article for years now? Is this an actual breakthrough or will I see one again on a couple of months
Re: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass
#20This is just epoxy with wood around it.