Glass-fibre wood: the composite materials used on the reduction of wood in the wood laminated industry

Abstract

The actual world faces a big environmental problem: the climatical changes, due to theincreasing of the greenhouse effect in association with the diminution of the green areas,are changing the entire globe.To reduce the quantity of wood used in a wood laminate, a new technology based incomposite materials, has been developed in a partnership between the Department ofMechanical Engineering and Industrial Management of the Engineering Faculty ofOporto University and the Institute of Mechanical Engineering and IndustrialManagement.This technology creates a new material called GLASS FIBRE WOOD (GFW).The GFW its a thermoset matrix laminate without the impregnation in the wood exteriorlayer, very similar tactile and visually with the usual wood laminates such as MediumDensityFibreboard (MDF).Meanwhile, the similarities are not much more, because the mechanical behaviour of theGFW is higher, the environmental impact is lower and the wood and energy consumesare also much lower than the MDF.This article presents the GFW and is comparison with one of GFW's bigger competitor - the MDF.