Wood and Timber Flashcards
How many cubic meters of tinder are harvested worldwide every year?
~1.6 billion m^3
How much timber is used in the UK each year?
50 million m^3
How much timber does the UK produce each year?
~16 million m^3
How much of the UKs timber is imported?
66%
What type of wood is used in construction, and where does it come from?
Softwood
From Scandinavia and the baltic states
What type of wood is used for furniture and interior design and where does it come from?
Hardwood and it comes from Eastern and Western Europe and North America
How is tropical wood used?
In marine construction and high value interiors
What are some advantages of wood in construction?
- Excellent combination of physical properties
- High compressive and tensile strength
- Readily available
- Relatively low cost
- Good thermal properties
- Good durability in some conditions
- Predictable fire behaviour
- Sustainable material if harvested right
- compatible with other engineering materials
- Aesthetically pleasing
What are some disadvantages of timber?
- Widely variable properties
- variability in performance
- properties vary in different directions
- contains inherent flaws
- significant waste from each tree
- durability can be poor under particularly wet conditions
- attacked by certain insects, bacteria, and fungi
- transport costs
- needs to be dry before use
- dimensional stability
- fire performance
What makes wood a sustainable construction material?
- It is the only renewable construction material
- Low embodied energy consumption
- Low in use energy consumption due to low thermal conductivity
- High embodied carbon due to photosynthesis
How much CO2 does a tree absorb through photosynthesis and how much oxygen do they produce in the same period?
1000kg CO2
727kg O2
per m^3 growth
Therefore young trees are better for the environment than old ones
By using wood instead of another construction material how much CO2 is embodied?
2 tonnes per m^3
How much more energy do concrete and steel use than timber strength for strength?
concrete uses 5x
steel 6x
What organisation ensures sustainable forests?
The forest setwarship council (FSC)
What does the FSC do?
combat illegal and unethical logging techniques as well as environmentally damaging logging
How much of the wood consumed in Europe is from European forests?
over 90%
Why is the European forest industry so good?
It plants more trees than it harvests
European forests grow by 3,500 square miles a year
How much carbon is stored in European forests?
9.5 miillion tonnes
How much of the weight of wood is carbohydrate?
70%
What structure does glucose have?
ring
What are glucose molecules linked by
alpha or beta linkages to form polysaccharides
What does cellulose consist of?
Cellulose structures, joined by beta-1,4 bonds
What part of wood does lignin make up?
The non biodegradable part
What is the structure of lignn
A massive random polymer of phenylpropane alcohol
What is the moisture content of wood when it is cut?
up to 85%
How is wood dried?
Either by air drying or Kiln drying
What is the structure of wood like?
On the very outside you have bark, consisting of the periderm (cork cambium and cork) and the living phloem
Then you have the sapwood
Then the heartwood