Wood composites

Lars Berglund; Roger M. Rowell

Treesearch

Wood composites

Informally Refereed

Authors:

Lars Berglund, Roger M. Rowell

Year:

2005

Type:

Miscellaneous Publication

Station:

Forest Products Laboratory

Source:

Handbook of wood chemistry and wood composites. Boca Raton, Fla. : CRC Press, 2005: pages 279-301.

Download (PDF 546 KB)

Download (PDF 546 KB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/22049.pdf

Abstract

A composite can be defined as two or more elements held together by a matrix. By this definition, what we call “solid wood” is a composite. Solid wood is a three-dimensional composite composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin (with smaller amounts of inorganics and extractives), held together by a lignin matrix. The advantages of developing wood composites are (1) to use smaller trees, (2) to use waste wood from other processing, (3) to remove defects, (4) to create more uniform components, (5) to develop composites that are stronger than the original solid wood, and (6) to be able to make composites of different shapes.

Keywords

Composite materials, engineered wood, waferboard, hardboard, fiberboard, adhesives, particle board, plywood, laminated wood, nanocomposites, glulam timbers, strandboard, composite wood

Citation

Berglund, Lars; Rowell, Roger M. 2005. Wood composites. Handbook of wood chemistry and wood composites. Boca Raton, Fla. : CRC Press, 2005: pages 279-301.