
Crushed wood is stronger than steel - okket
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01600-6
======
jacquesm
The most expensive wooden floors have the end grain exposed facing upwards and
this is then compressed down, much like the top of a good quality butchers
block. Those floors are just about indestructible.

The heavier such floors are used the stronger they get!

The wood in the article is compressed crosswise to the grain (so they get
thinner rather than shorter), using the original planks as the raw organic
material to produce an engineered product that has relatively little to do
with the original wood. While this is very impressive the process does not
sound cheap (it is time consuming and will produce quite a bit of toxic waste)
and the way the article is worded leaves it ambiguous of the strength increase
is relative to the original base material or if it is on an absolute scale
using the same cross section.

The article states the result is 10 times stronger than the original after
being compressed to 1/5th of the size, making it effectively thinner, lighter
and stronger at the same time.

It appears that the increase in density is where the writer missed the fact
that reducing the cross section but leaving the amount of material the same
does not result in an increase in strength on an absolute scale, it merely
means that if you then laminated five of the densified planks back to the
original cross section the result would be 11 times stronger.

But then you'd lose much of the weight advantage.

So I suspect this is either a space or a strength gain, but not both to the
extent the article indicates.

In the previous century there was a lot of research done on strengthening wood
including gamma radiation and all kinds of other treatments, but none of those
ever made it to very high levels of industrial adoption.

~~~
euroclydon
Do you mind sharing a picture of this done right? The end grain wood floor
pics I found on Google look mostly hideous to me.

~~~
burger_moon
This used to be very common for machine shops to have wood floors, I found an
article detailing it with some pictures. I worked in a couple shops that had
wood floors, they were nothing to look at, it was an industrial setting after
all. [https://web.pa.msu.edu/services/machine-
shop/shopfloor.htm](https://web.pa.msu.edu/services/machine-
shop/shopfloor.htm)

At Amazon in the new Day 1 building their main staircase to the lobby is built
from wood ends and it is done very nicely. It looks great. There's probably
pictures online of that.

edit, I found one picture from a geekwire article. Unfortunately you can't see
the grain, the picture is from a far. [https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/20161107...](https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/20161107_081028-1240x698.jpg)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>This used to be very common for machine shops to have wood floors

That is done because wood is soft and if you drop a tool or part on the floor
it's far less likely to be damaged. Wood has been superseded by (usually vinyl
IIRC) tile and/or rubber/plastic mats in a lot of places.

~~~
bobf
It's also done for the comfort of the people working there. Standing on
concrete all day is more tiring than on a wooden floor.

------
willvarfar
People may also find Pykrete interesting
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete)

Its adding wood pulp to ice to make the ice much much tougher. It was invented
by the epitome boffin Geoffrey Pyke, who proposed they build an aircraft
carrier of it!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk)

~~~
tCfD
> epitome boffin

Speaking of which, he's first cousin to Magnus Pyke - the guy usually
remembered in the US (if at all) as the Professor shouting "science!" in
Thomas Dolby's "she blinded me with science;" both on the song and in the
video. In the UK he was, like his cousin Geoffrey, much better known for being
the quintessential boffin, though Magnus self consciously played up this
stereotype in his long television career. Sort of like Bill Nye on the outside
but Carl Sagan on the inside.

~~~
aidenn0
what does "boffin" mean in this context, is it like the US nerd, or (more
recently) geek?

~~~
ZenoArrow
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin)

"Boffin is a British slang term for a scientist, engineer, or other person
engaged in technical or scientific research and development. A "boffin" was
generally viewed by the regular services as odd, quirky or peculiar, though
quite bright and essential to helping in the war effort. The World War II
conception of boffins as war-winning researchers lends the term a more
positive connotation than related terms such as nerd, egghead, geek or spod."

To explain the modern use (which is very rare, outside of the tabloid news
industry), a boffin is somewhat similar to geek, but it's used to describe
knowledgeable people in academic / research fields, and occasionally in
computing too. It's often said in a jokey way (I've never heard anyone
describe themselves as a boffin), but it's not really an insult, there's a
certain level of recognition that they know things that the person calling
them a boffin does not.

------
HenryBemis
I remember some time ago, watching an megafactories episode [1], about IKEA,
and they described how they create durable, strong wooden frames, which they
later using into making various furnitures. I am surprised there is no
reference to that process, as I believe IKEA's has probably done 'a lot' of
R&D on everything-wood (and probably disqualifies using $$$ criteria).

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXI6Z3t6PDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXI6Z3t6PDY)

------
mcguire
" _Five layers of the material laminated together — just 3 millimetres thick
in total — was able to halt a 46-gram steel projectile travelling at roughly
30 metres per second. [...] That’s much slower than the several hundred metres
per second at which a bullet travels, says Hu, but it is comparable to the
speed at which a car might be moving before a collision, making the material
possibly suitable for use in vehicles._ "

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Nature?

A ballistic impact seems like a poor model for a vehicular impact. You don't
want a car to resist impacts the way armor stops bullets. A large, slow
projectile isn't a small fast projectile, but should be comparable. This
section seems meaningless.

------
fouric
"...eco-friendly alternative to using plastics and metals..."

Would someone be able to explain to me why metal isn't "eco-friendly"? I
understand that some plastics degrade into small, unfriendly particles over
time (and others can't be recycled), but I always thought that metals were
fairly easy to recycle with a very high recovery rate.

~~~
jfrankamp
Mining ore, processing metal is difficult and energy intensive and produces
waste tailings. Steel doesn't grow on trees while wood does. It is unclear
from my reading whether or not the process in the article produces a lot of
waste, or if the chem bath they use can be recycled in-situ, but the reduced
ecological cost of material acquisition alone makes this idea worth pursuing.

------
grizzles
Recently a graphene manufacturing process has been discovered that involved
taking sheets of a high carbon wood (elm iirc) and shining a laser at it
inside an argon atmosphere to make a surface layer of graphene.

When I first heard about it I thought of this use case and couldn't help but
wonder if the technique might work with IPL or some other generalized light
source with a longer illumination period. It would be cool to find out.

------
danso
Reminds me of the surprising strength of armor made out of folded paper:
[http://mythbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Paper_Armor_Myth](http://mythbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Paper_Armor_Myth)

------
dogprez
Reminds me of Raymond Feist's Riftwar Cycle. The Tsurani's planet was devoid
of metal so they had all wooden armor and weapons... _uncomfortable silence_

~~~
logfromblammo
The Feist collaboration with Janny Wurts went into much more detail, and is in
my opinion more readable than Feist's solo work.

Basically, as materials science goes, they skipped everything about metallurgy
and went straight to ceramics, polymers, and composites. Seems like Feist took
the concept from Teng-dynasty paper armor and just ran with it, including the
pseudo-Asian flavor of the Tsurani.

------
noworld
And if you keep crushing it then it will become as hard as a diamond.

~~~
yAnonymous
And if you keep going, you'll eventually create a black hole.

~~~
gonvaled
Mini black hole, evaporating fast unless you feed it faster!

~~~
beobab
Annnnd... Now I'm reading about black holes, no-hair theorems, how zero mass
particles behave around black holes. Goodbye productivity! :)

~~~
platz
[https://youtu.be/_8bhtEgB8Mo](https://youtu.be/_8bhtEgB8Mo)

Black hole firewalls is a favorite conundrum of mine.

------
lr4444lr
Interesting, but what about biodegradability? Will it not be eroded by
microorganisms in the outdoors over time? It is still wood, after all.

~~~
Filligree
It's still wood, and wood is only barely biodegradable. If you take decent
care of it it'll last for centuries.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
A fallen tree in damp conditions rots down in a year or so. Seems pretty
biodegradable.

Your second sentence I have no problem with.

~~~
mr_overalls
Yeah, "decent care" means "kept away from moisture, fire, and bugs."

Such care can be difficult in the long term, but yields results like the
beautiful 700 year-old woodwork in this English cathedral. (And of course the
comments mention the Buddhist temple Hōryū-ji.)

[http://blog.longnow.org/02009/01/12/how-long-can-wood-
last/](http://blog.longnow.org/02009/01/12/how-long-can-wood-last/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I agree completely. The only part I disagree with its the claim wood is
"barely biodegradable". Almost anything can be preserved.

~~~
freehunter
If we're disregarding proper maintenance, almost anything can be biodegradable
too. Steel will easily rust into dust in an alarmingly short period of time,
but we have 100-story buildings made of un-rusted steel lasting for a century
and maybe centuries more. Compared to cars from 5 years ago rusted into
oblivion even while they're still being driven.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Rusting isn't biodegrading, it's chemical. Of course the lines aren't
distinct, but they seem much clearer than you're suggesting.

~~~
freehunter
In this case I don't think it really matters. No one says "my car is fine,
it's just rusting not biodegrading". What matters is that the car is
disappearing right before your eyes through natural processes that could have
been prevented with normal maintenance.

Wood, when properly taken care of, lasts forever. Steel, when properly taken
care of, lasts forever. Each of them will degrade without proper maintenance,
and oddly enough they both have basically the same maintenance needs. Keep
them dry, otherwise oil them occasionally.

------
tzahola
Define "stronger"

~~~
jacquesm
The article is pretty confused about what they mean by stronger, on the one
hand they use language that suggests tensile strength but they then go on to
illustrate some non-quantitative measure by talking about penetration by
pellets and deformation in collision like situations.

------
kingkongjaffa
The title is completely false.

Metals are used for their material properties more than just strength but
homogeneous strength and stiffness (in all directions) and tolerance to a wide
range of environmental conditions (thermal and moisture cycling)

Not to mention ease of manufacturing.

The material described in the article will never make it out of the lab.

~~~
jacquesm
Engineered wood has been a thing for over 100 years. Wood has a lot of
desirable properties that make it a good construction material (fire
resistance for instance is much better than steel).

This article is definitely missing the wood for the trees to some extent, but
it is an interesting development and even if the gain isn't going to be quite
as large as indicated and there are some serious questions about whether it
will scale or not that does not mean it isn't interesting research.

But I agree with you that this is not exactly around the corner for mass
production, a whole pile of problems would need to be solved and after they
are the product may well end up not being economically viable.

~~~
Something1234
How is wood more fire resistant than steel? What are the metrics used for
this?

~~~
jacquesm
Because it does not lose its strength as fast in a fire. Wood doesn't flow, it
simply burns from the outside in and the inner parts not exposed to the fire
are just as strong as they were before the fire.

By contrast: steel is an excellent conductor of heat and the interior of a
beam is just as hot as the outside of the beam exposed to the fire.

------
tekkk
Didn't Hydraulic Press Channel do something similar with crushing a paper
sheet until it turned stonish? Well not that similar but it was an interesting
phenomenon nonetheless.

------
joshuahedlund
Scientific American has more gee-whiz details:
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stronger-than-
ste...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stronger-than-steel-able-
to-stop-a-speeding-bullet-mdash-it-rsquo-s-super-wood/)

(I'm totally unqualified to parse between the articles' potential uninformed
optimism and fellow commenters' skepticisms)

------
Yetanfou
If the wood ends up strongest with 45% of the lignin removed I'd try to
engineer a species with a lower lignin content to begin with. So-called
'weeping' varieties (Weeping Willow etc.) get their specific hanging shape
from a later onset of cell wall hardening due to delayed lignin deposition so
those might be a good start.

------
davesque
I'm guessing this material has more compressive strength but less tensile
strength than steel? If so, how could you replace steel with compressed wood
as the title implies? They're totally different materials from a mechanical
engineer's point of view.

------
qbaqbaqba
I have read(@ Atomic Adventures by James Mahaffey) about "lockwood" made by
irradiating wood. It's supposed to have been quite popular, used for floors,
even bows. Have you encounter it?

------
Agathos
Steel is the Worf of materials science.

~~~
boobsbr
Care to explain, please?

~~~
Ajedi32
It's a reference to [The Worf Effect][1].

[1]:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect)

~~~
Agathos
Exactly. Just to amuse myself, I spent a few minutes googling for materials
that are "stronger than steel."

spider silk (a classic): [https://www.npr.org/2017/01/14/509807212/spider-
silk-is-stro...](https://www.npr.org/2017/01/14/509807212/spider-silk-is-
stronger-than-steel-and-now-it-can-be-made-in-a-lab)

bone: [http://ipfactly.com/human-bone-is-stronger-than-
steel/](http://ipfactly.com/human-bone-is-stronger-than-steel/)

a graphene sponge: [https://www.materialstoday.com/mechanical-
properties/news/sp...](https://www.materialstoday.com/mechanical-
properties/news/spongeshaped-materials-can-be-stronger-than-steel/)

carbon nanotubes:
[https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2010/...](https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2010/acs-
presspac-september-15-2010/carbon-nanotubes-twice-as-strong-as-once-
thought.html)

silica nanofibers (because carbon is old news):
[https://prescouter.com/2013/02/new-material-is-lighter-
than-...](https://prescouter.com/2013/02/new-material-is-lighter-than-plastic-
but-stronger-than-steel/)

fiber-reinforced hydrogel: [https://www.global.hokudai.ac.jp/blog/new-tougher-
than-metal...](https://www.global.hokudai.ac.jp/blog/new-tougher-than-metal-
fiber-reinforced-hydrogels/)

One starts to wonder if steel was ever all that strong. But I'm sure the real
lesson is there are a lot of ways to measure strength.

~~~
jccalhoun
Yes, there are tons of things "stronger than steel" but lack the other
advantages of steel.

------
tremendulo
Why doesn't wood that paves streets biodegrade?

~~~
freehunter
Short answer: creosote.

It's basically tar made from coal, they soak the wood in it and the tar makes
the wood far more durable and waterproof. It's the same reason railroad ties
can last basically forever.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creosote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creosote)

------
ajarmst
*For some values of 'stronger'.

------
tlholaday
Fire? Termites?

------
kirillseva
But can jet fuel melt crushed wood?

------
waytogo
Super interesting piece and as somebody who is interested in many things I
appreciate such articles.

But seeing this on #1 feels a bit off on HN. Is there a slight possibility
that the feed is sometimes curated (eg through different voting powers)?

~~~
ewi_
Or there is simply quite a few people like you who find this interesting, as
the YC posting guidelines put it:

"If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that
gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

