Mechanics of balsa (Ochroma pyramidale) wood
Name
Mech. balsa_draftall04.pdf
Size
13.73 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
79e3887215b902f6212b7bfde63784e3
Author(s)
Borrega Sabate, Marc
Gibson, Lorna J.
Date Issued
February 2015
Journal
Mechanics of Materials
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Borrega, Marc, and Lorna J. Gibson. “Mechanics of Balsa (Ochroma Pyramidale) Wood.” Mechanics of Materials 84 (May 2015): 75–90.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Balsa wood is one of the preferred core materials in structural sandwich panels, in applications ranging from wind turbine blades to boats and aircraft. Here, we investigate the mechanical behavior of balsa as a function of density, which varies from roughly 60 to 380 kg/m3. In axial compression, bending, and torsion, the elastic modulus and strength increase linearly with density while in radial compression, the modulus and strength vary nonlinearly. Models relating the mechanical properties to the cellular structure and to the density, based on deformation and failure mechanisms, are described. Finally, wood cell-wall properties are determined by extrapolating the mechanical data for balsa, and are compared with the reduced modulus and hardness of the cell wall measured by nanoindentation.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmat.2015.01.014
