A US company has engineered a new type of wood that it says has up to 10 times the strength-to-weight ratio of steel, while also being up to six times lighter.
If i had to guess then I’d guess they mean lighter by volume. Like if an i-beam made of steel weighs 6 tons, then the same size i-beam made using superwood would weigh 1 ton.
I.e. it’s 10 times better in strength-to-weight, and it’s 6 times better in strength-to-volume.
This is just my guess at interpreting what they tried to say
There’s a great video on YouTube by NileRed, basically they soak the wood in stuff to make the cellulose soft, then then compress the hell out of it with some heat evaporating the chemical and making smushy strong wood.
neat!
But… but that’s… that’s part of the thing. That you just said improved. The ‘weight’ part in ‘strength-to-weight’.
Yes, but they are different values.
The company’s own website lists “weight” as a separate row item in their performance comparison chart
https://www.inventwood.com/technology
I think it means 10 times strength-to-weight, and 6 times strength-to-volume size
If i had to guess then I’d guess they mean lighter by volume. Like if an i-beam made of steel weighs 6 tons, then the same size i-beam made using superwood would weigh 1 ton.
I.e. it’s 10 times better in strength-to-weight, and it’s 6 times better in strength-to-volume.
This is just my guess at interpreting what they tried to say
There’s a great video on YouTube by NileRed, basically they soak the wood in stuff to make the cellulose soft, then then compress the hell out of it with some heat evaporating the chemical and making smushy strong wood.
Keeping strength constant, a superwood beam would weigh 10 times less (with some reduction in volume).
Keeping volume constant, a superwood beam would weigh 6 times less (with some improvement in strength)