Properties of wood

Wood as natural, biologically gained raw material has a wide range of characteristics: Specific values that are known for steel, concrete and other materials, depend on the type of tree, its growth, age, etc. Characteristics like compression or tensile strenght thus vary substantially.

Generally speaking, wood has better strenght values if the load is applied along than across the wood fibres. Wood’s characteristic of absorbing and emitting moisture poses a significant problem in practica use as it entails deformation (shrinking and swelling) up to 1 per mill in the direction of the fibres. Already the ancient Egyptians tried to solve the problem by glueing a thin layers of wood (veneers) onto the wood panels. Today, there are various wood materials that due to the glueing technique have better form stability than wood itself: plywood panels, fibre boards, laminated wood panels etc.

iwood, contrary to its competition, uses no glue at all in its newly developed SLP panel! The characteristics of SLP are based on the wood’s starch and on yeast, that is capable of turning starch into a binding agent.