Is it possible to make smaller scale CLT, with thinner boards or something, and build like cars or airplanes out of it?
Is it possible to make smaller scale CLT, with thinner boards or something, and build like cars or airplanes out of it?
That said, CLT has 2 major advantages over regular wood:
1. It is more dimensionally stable, it expands/contracts less and in a more uniform way.
2. It is cheaper at larger dimensions. I.e. 0.5m x 0.5m x 20m wooden beams would take decades to grow and even then not realiably, but you can just manufacture CLT beams with those dimensions easily out of <10yr old trees.
Those two advantages are not limiting factors for the construction of cars or airplanes, so CLT is not super relevant to them.
Aluminum still has a higher strength/weight ratio which is everything in aero. Also, I'm not finding any information on cyclic strain behavior. Dimensional stability is only part of that.
Edit: There could be room for this in experimental aircraft. Once we tease out all the failure modes and properly characterize cyclic behaviorof course.
A lot of modern cars are made with a lot of composite materials that probably have better properties. But I imagine CLT could work well for things that are currently made out of steel or aluminium on such cars. I'm not sure if there's a big advantage to doing that in terms of strength, weight, or durability though. Aluminium might be lighter. And composite materials provide better strength and weight.