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Video of Wood Being Friction-Welded Together

It's not technically a production method until they can figure out what to produce with it

By Rain Noe - November 3, 2015

in Materials

Friction welding is a process whereby two pieces of like material, typically plastic or metal, are rubbed together at high speeds. The resultant heat essentially melts the adjoining surfaces together. Surprisingly, someone figured out that this process can also be used with wood:

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According to the Laboratory for Timber Construction at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, what's happening here is…

… the interface between two timber boards is heated by a fast and short oscillating frictional movement combined with pressure. The introduction of heat energy leads to a thermal decomposition of the polymeric compounds in the wood cell material. The chemical products of this degradation process form a viscous layer of thermally softened material, which hardens when the friction movement is stopped and the interface is cooling down, while a certain cooling pressure is applied.

The video above was shot by UK-based The Welding Institute. Though the video itself is fairly recent, the technique is not, and may not offer much in the way of practical applications; in an article called "Timber Welding," TWI researchers wrote that "The world of furniture manufacture could be turned on its head shortly..." That was in 2006.

While another article from the Tennessee Forest Products Center claims that "the technology is most promising for interior joinery and furniture," it seems unlikely it will replace glue and clamps anytime soon; the machines are not cheap, and whatever time efficiencies are gained by not having to wait for glue to dry would likely be offset by the complicated clamping and jigging required to fasten two parts that weren't small milled boards. Nor is the process suitable for exterior construction, as the earlier EPFL article reports that "The relatively brittle bond is highly sensitive to swelling and shrinkage movements of the wood. Changing climatic conditions can lead to cracks within the interface."

Those of you who work with wood, particularly on an industrial scale: Can you think of any applications for this technology, given its limitations, that would lead to greater uptake? If so, you'd be cracking a puzzle they haven't been able to solve for roughly a decade.

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Josef Wü

9 years ago

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The process isn´t very new. Niedecker is using it for years to manufacture snowboards.
More new is to screw wooden dowels that "merge" with the Wood.

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- Federico Cardeillac
  
  Josef Wü
  
  9 years ago
  
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  Where can I find info about this "merging " dowels, thanks
  
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  - Josef Wü
    
    Federico Cardeillac
    
    9 years ago
    
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    I read about it in the book "Wonder Wood" p. 272
    
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Daren R

9 years ago

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This could've been useful a couple times when I didn't use the "measure-twice, cut-once" proverb.

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