Books by Keyword: Softwood

Description: Volume is indexed by Thomson Reuters BCI (WoS).
Wood, which always looks quite solid to the naked eye, actually possesses a very intricate and exquisite structure; developed by Nature primarily to fulfil the requirements of a growing tree. How well the structure satisfies the needs of a construction material as used by humans is quite another matter - so to speak. Besides being an important constructional material, wood is today also an important source of precursors for the medical and chemical compounds used by human beings. These, and many other aspects of wood, are topics which materials science attempts to elucidate. When wood is used as a constructional material, human interest normally focuses on xylem, the “woody” inner portion of the trunk of a tree. The outer sections of the tree, the bark and cambium, mainly interest humans for reasons other than constructional.
As wood is an organic polymer-matrix composite, the study of wood might be assumed to be the province mainly of polymer scientists. This is not true however: materials scientists working on polymers are almost absent from research into wood. The situation is actually quite odd; since wood offers plenty of ideas which would also be applicable to synthetic polymers and their composites. This situation is reflected by the contents of this publication.

Description: One of the oldest construction materials is wood which, technically speaking, belongs to the group of polymer matrix composites; one which is conveniently and expertly produced by Nature. Due to its organic cell-type structure, the density of wood remains modest. Thus, as its strength and stiffness can - in certain cases - attain remarkable values, its levels of specific strength and stiffness (absolute strength or stiffness divided by density) can reach magnitudes which are competitive with those of other construction materials. It is demonstrated, for instance, that the specific strength of wood in the axial direction can exceed those of low-carbon steel and concrete. Its specific stiffness can also be comparable to those of aluminum alloys and low-carbon steels, and is better than that of concrete. In constructional design, especially in the dimensioning of supports, the values of specific strength and stiffness are of utmost importance.