Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and plastic

Post by sixstringtheory » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:02 AM UTC

tjmc wrote: post #225

Mechanical engineer here. This article is very light on a lot of detail which would allow you to reasonably compare this material to steel, plastic or any other material. Just a few that come to mind: Hard materials are usually brittle materials that fail suddenly. How tough is it? ie. Can it accept some deformation without significant weakening and will it stretch or crack prior to failure? What is its compressive s…

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:07 AM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #71

canadian_tired wrote: post #64

Wood is renewable when you can grow it, cut it up into useful shapes, then at the end of its useful life, compost it. As soon as you add a shit load of processing and plastic and other stuff it's not "wood" anymore than gasoline is a dead dinosaur. As for things like plywood that use glue for the laminations...glue is the most expensive and important part of the product. Not the wood so much. Replacing steel? I don't…

Steel is amazing - and as a result we use it in all kinds of places where its properties aren't fully utilized. Aluminum has been growing into that role of "steel alternative", but there's still room for other alternatives.

Post by ummonk » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #151

jaclaz wrote: post #28

Of course I cannot access the full text article, but the claim that this HW can be sharpened and become "3 times sharper" than "most commercial table knives" sounds not very scientific.

Since "table knife" means the typical dull cutlery knives (as opposed to e.g. steak or kitchen knives), I have no doubt that wood (hardened or not) can be sharpened like that.

Post by fy20 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 3:59 AM UTC

canadian_tired wrote: post #64

Wood is renewable when you can grow it, cut it up into useful shapes, then at the end of its useful life, compost it. As soon as you add a shit load of processing and plastic and other stuff it's not "wood" anymore than gasoline is a dead dinosaur. As for things like plywood that use glue for the laminations...glue is the most expensive and important part of the product. Not the wood so much. Replacing steel? I don't…

Post by pitaj » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

aurizon wrote: post #156

ip26 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steel is amazing - and as a result we use it in all kinds of places where its properties aren't fully utilized. Aluminum has been growing into that role of "steel alternative", but there's still room for other alternatives.

Looking back at Aluminium, it was once very costly - there was no economical way to extract it from clay by traditional metallurgy. When the Hall process of electrolytic extraction from molten salts was invented = huge price decline, and useage. Titanium is in a similar position, fairly common, but hard to extract economically. I hope there is a low cost electrolytic to recover Titanium found some day, as it is a ver…