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Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers (which are strong in tension) embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, or it is defined more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere such as in tree roots or in other plants such as shrubs. In a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up for themselves. It also mediates the transfer of water and nutrients to the leaves and other growing tissues. Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fiber.

The earth contains about one trillion tonnes of wood, which grows at a rate of 10 billion tonnes per year. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy. In 1991, approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction.

History

A 2011 discovery in the Canadian province of New Brunswick uncovered the earliest known plants to have grown wood, approximately 395 to 400 million years ago.

People have used wood for millennia for many purposes, primarily as a fuel or as a construction material for making houses, tools, weapons, furniture, packaging, artworks, and paper.

Wood can be dated by carbon dating and in some species by dendrochronology to make inferences about when a wooden object was created.

The year-to-year variation in tree-ring widths and isotopic abundances gives clues to the prevailing climate at that time.

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Hard and soft woods

There is a strong relationship between the properties of wood and the properties of the particular tree that yielded it. The density of wood varies with species. The density of a wood correlates with its strength (mechanical properties). For example, mahogany is a medium-dense hardwood that is excellent for fine furniture crafting, whereas balsa is light, making it useful for model building. One of the densest woods is black ironwood.

It is common to classify wood as either softwood or hardwood. The wood from conifers (e.g. pine) is called softwood, and the wood from dicotyledons (usually broad-leaved trees, e.g. oak) is called hardwood. These names are a bit misleading, as hardwoods are not necessarily hard, and softwoods are not necessarily soft. The well-known balsa (a hardwood) is actually softer than any commercial softwood. Conversely, some softwoods (e.g. yew) are harder than many hardwoods.

Chemistry of wood

Aside from water, wood has three main components. Cellulose, a crystalline polymer derived from glucose, constitutes about 41–43%. Next in abundance is hemicellulose, which is around 20% in deciduous trees but near 30% in conifers. It is mainly five-carbon sugars that are linked in an irregular manner, in contrast to the cellulose. Lignin is the third component at around 27% in coniferous wood vs 23% in deciduous trees. Lignin confers the hydrophobic properties reflecting the fact that it is based on aromatic rings. These three components are interwoven, and direct covalent linkages exist between the lignin and the hemicellulose. A major focus of the paper industry is the separation of the lignin from the cellulose, from which paper is made.

In chemical terms, the difference between hardwood and softwood is reflected in the composition of the constituent lignin. Hardwood lignin is primarily derived from sinapyl alcohol and coniferyl alcohol. Softwood lignin is mainly derived from coniferyl alcohol.

Extractives

Aside from the lignocellulose, wood consists of a variety of low molecular weight organic compounds, called extractives. The wood extractives are fatty acids, resin acids, waxes and terpenes. For example, rosin is exuded by conifers as protection from insects. The extraction of these organic materials from wood provides tall oil, terpentine, and rosin.

Uses

Fuel

Wood has a long history of being used as fuel, which continues to this day, mostly in rural areas of the world. Hardwood is preferred over softwood because it creates less smoke and burns longer. Adding a woodstove or fireplace to a home is often felt to add ambiance and warmth.

Construction

Wood has been an important construction material since humans began building shelters, houses and boats. Nearly all boats were made out of wood until the late 19th century, and wood remains in common use today in boat construction.

Wood to be used for construction work is commonly known as lumber in North America. Elsewhere, lumber usually refers to felled trees, and the word for sawn planks ready for use is timber.

New domestic housing in many parts of the world today is commonly made from timber-framed construction. Engineered wood products are becoming a bigger part of the construction industry. They may be used in both residential and commercial buildings as structural and aesthetic materials.

In buildings made of other materials, wood will still be found as a supporting material, especially in roof construction, in interior doors and their frames, and as exterior cladding.

Wood is also commonly used as shuttering material to form the mould into which concrete is poured during reinforced concrete construction.

Furniture and utensils

Wood has always been used extensively for furniture, such as chairs and beds. Also for tool handles and cutlery, such as chopsticks, toothpicks, and other utensils, like the wooden spoon.

Engineered wood

Engineered wood products, glued building products "engineered" for application-specific performance requirements, are often used in construction and industrial applications. Glued engineered wood products are manufactured by bonding together wood strands, veneers, lumber or other forms of wood fiber with glue to form a larger, more efficient composite structural unit. These products include glued laminated timber (glulam), wood structural panels (including plywood, oriented strand board and composite panels), laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and other structural composite lumber (SCL) products, parallel strand lumber, and I-joists. Approximately 100 million cubic meters of wood was consumed for this purpose in 1991. The trends suggest that particle board and fiber board will overtake plywood.

Engineered wood products display highly predictable and reliable performance characteristics and provide enhanced design flexibility: on one hand, these products allow the use of smaller pieces, and on the other hand, they allow for bigger spans. They may also be selected for specific projects such as public swimming pools or ice rinks where the wood will not deteriorate in the presence of certain chemicals, and are less susceptible to the humidity changes commonly found in these environments.

Engineered wood products prove to be more environmentally friendly and, if used appropriately, are often less expensive than building materials such as steel or concrete. These products are extremely resource-efficient because they use more of the available resource with minimal waste. In most cases, engineered wood products are produced using faster growing and often underutilized wood species from managed forests and tree farms.

Wood unsuitable for construction in its native form may be broken down mechanically (into fibers or chips) or chemically (into cellulose) and used as a raw material for other building materials, such as engineered wood, as well as chipboard, hardboard, and medium-density fiberboard (MDF). Such wood derivatives are widely used: wood fibers are an important component of most paper, and cellulose is used as a component of some synthetic materials. Wood derivatives can also be used for kinds of flooring, for example laminate flooring.

Next generation wood products

Further developments include new lignin glue applications, recyclable food packaging, rubber tire replacement applications, anti-bacterial medical agents, and high strength fabrics or composites. As scientists and engineers further learn and develop new techniques to extract various components from wood, or alternatively to modify wood, for example by adding components to wood, new more advanced products will appear on the marketplace.

In the arts

Wood has long been used as an artistic medium. It has been used to make sculptures and carvings for millennia. Examples include the totem poles carved by North American indigenous people from conifer trunks, often Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata), and the Millennium clock tower, now housed in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

It is also used in woodcut printmaking, and for engraving.

Certain types of musical instruments, such as those of the violin family, the guitar, the clarinet and recorder, the xylophone, and the marimba, are made mostly or entirely of wood. The choice of wood may make a significant difference to the tone and resonant qualities of the instrument, and tonewoods have widely differing properties, ranging from the hard and dense african blackwood (used for the bodies of clarinets) to the light but resonant European spruce (Picea abies) (traditionally used for the soundboards of violins). The most valuable tonewoods, such as the ripple sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), used for the backs of violins, combine acoustic properties with decorative color and grain which enhance the appearance of the finished instrument.

Despite their collective name, not all woodwind instruments are made entirely of wood. The reeds used to play them, however, are usually made from Arundo donax, a type of monocot cane plant.

Sports and recreational equipment

Many types of sports equipment are made of wood, or were constructed of wood in the past. For example, cricket bats are typically made of white willow. The baseball bats which are legal for use in Major League Baseball are frequently made of ash wood or hickory, and in recent years have been constructed from maple even though that wood is somewhat more fragile. In softball, however, bats are more commonly made of aluminium (this is especially true for fastpitch softball).

Many other types of sports and recreation equipment, such as skis, ice hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and archery bows, were commonly made of wood in the past, but have since been replaced with more modern materials such as aluminium, fiberglass, carbon fiber, titanium, and composite materials. One noteworthy example of this trend is the golf club commonly known as the wood, the head of which was traditionally made of persimmon wood in the early days of the game of golf, but is now generally made of synthetic materials.

Medicine

In January 2010 Italian scientists announced that wood could be harnessed to become a bone substitute. It is likely to take at least five years until this technique will be applied for humans.

See also

• Burl
• Carpentry
• Driftwood
• Dunnage
• Forestry
• List of woods
• Lumber
• Parquetry
• Plywood
• Pulpwood
• Sawdust
• Tinder
• Wood as a medium
• Wood drying
• Wood economy
• Wood flooring
• Wood pellet
• Wood preservation
• Wood warping
• Wood-plastic composite
• Woodturning
• Woodworking
• Woodworm
• Xylology
• Xylophagy
• Xylotheque
• Xylotomy

Notes

1. Hickey, M.; King, C. (2001). The Cambridge Illustrated Glossary of Botanical Terms. Cambridge University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. ^ Horst H. Nimz, Uwe Schmitt, Eckart Schwab, Otto Wittmann, Franz Wolf "Wood" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry 2005, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. doi:10.1002/14356007.a28_305
3. "N.B. fossils show origins of wood". CBC.ca. August 12, 2011. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
4. Briffa K.; et al. (2008). "Trends in recent temperature and radial tree growth spanning 2000 years across northwest Eurasia". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 363 (1501): 2271–2284. doi:10.1098/rstb.2007.2199. PMC 2606779. PMID 18048299. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
5. W. Boerjan, J. Ralph, M. Baucher (2003). "Lignin biosynthesis". Ann. Rev. Plant Biol. 54 (1): 519–549. doi:10.1146/annurev.arplant.54.031902.134938. PMID 14503002. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
6. Mimms, Agneta (1993). Kraft Pulping. A Compilation of Notes. TAPPI Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 0-89852-322-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
7. Fiebach, Klemens; Grimm, Dieter (2000). "Resins, Natural". Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. doi:10.1002/14356007.a23_073. ISBN 978-3-527-30673-2.
8. Clean Burning Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
9. “Saitta House – Report Part 1”,DykerHeightsCivicAssociation.com
10. ^ APA Engineered Wood Construction Guide, Form E30
11. Wood University
12. http://www.forintek.ca/public/pdf/annual%20report/AR_2007_2008/AR_ENG_2007.pdf
13. ProfessionalNetSolutions.com. "The Millennium Clock Tower at Edinburgh Royal Museum". Freespace.virgin.net. Retrieved December 15, 2011.
14. http://www.nms.ac.uk/nationalmuseumhomepage.aspx
15. "Scientists make bones from wood". BBC News. January 3, 2010.

References

• Hoadley, R. Bruce (2000). Understanding Wood: A Craftsman’s Guide to Wood Technology. Taunton Press. ISBN 1-56158-358-8.
• Capon, Brian (2005). Botany for Gardeners (2nd ed.). Portland, OR: Timber Publishing. ISBN 0-88192-655-8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Shigo, Alex. (1986) A New Tree Biology Dictionary. Shigo and Trees, Associates. ISBN 0-943563-12-7
• The Wood in Culture Association
• The Wood Explorer: A comprehensive database of commercial wood species
• APA – The Engineered Wood Association

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• Forestry
• Natural materials
• Wood
• Woodworking
• Woodworking materials
• Trees
• Biodegradable materials
• Art materials
• Building materials
• Energy crops