Wood engineers discuss industry’s future

BAR HARBOR – Despite the housing slump, forest product businesses can still make gains in developing and manufacturing products for the construction industry, officials of the wood product industry were told Monday.

Approximately 100 people attended the first day of presentations at the fourth International Conference on Advanced Engineered Wood and Hybrid Composites, held at the Bar Harbor Club, to learn about efforts in the forest products industry to make building materials lighter, stronger, less expensive and more environmentally friendly.

The University of Maine’s Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center is hosting and co-sponsoring the three-day conference, which is being attended by wood-product engineers and students from across the country and from overseas.

Many of Monday’s presentations focused on technical information about research and manufacturing methods for new products, but one talk was aimed at highlighting the growth potential for wood products in the building industry.

Tom Williamson of APA – The Engineered Wood Association (formerly known as the American Plywood Association) told conference attendees that though the housing industry is in a slump, new building techniques and continued demand for new commercial buildings present opportunities for the forest products industry to compete favorably against makers of concrete and steel building materials.

“The concrete industry is hammering us hard,” Williamson said. “We’ve got some formidable foes to take on.”

One opportunity in the building industry is reconstructing communities along the Gulf of Mexico that sustained extensive hurricane damage in 2005, Williamson said. New buildings codes in the area require new structures to be built above ground level to minimize potential flood damage.

Some buildings are going up on raised earth and concrete foundations, according to Williamson, but wood industry officials are trying to get builders to construct homes with wood-framed floors that are raised off the ground. Being able to keep up with construction industry demands, and making sure wood products are cost-effective compared to concrete and steel, are part of the challenge, he said.

Research on hurricane damage shows that houses made from wood can withstand substantial storm damage, provided the homes are built with modern construction techniques, Williamson said. Using photos of houses that were damaged in the hurricanes to illustrate his point, he said structural failures that occurred were not the result of weaknesses in wood products, such as engineered panels, but from a failure of traditional fasteners.

Another opportunity is in the commercial building sector, he said, where new engineering techniques have made long-span wooden beams an attractive alternative to steel or concrete.

As he spoke, Williamson showed slides of the Cathedral of Light, a new wood-and-glass structure in Oakland, Calif., as an example of the structural and aesthetic possibilities for wood in commercial construction.

Williamson said his organization is working to promote wood construction in California, which has one of the largest economies in the world and where wood already is popular, and in the American Southeast, where wood is less popular but where there is potential to capture some of the market from the steel and concrete building supply industries.

“We think we can do anything with wood that they can do with steel and concrete and that we can do it a lot better,” Williamson said. “The opportunity for growth is phenomenal.”

Conference attendees also heard about several defense and homeland security-related research projects in which UMaine’s AEWC Center has played a central role. AEWC officials told them about desired improvements and testing methods that led, with the cooperation of Hodgdon Yachts in Boothbay, to the development of the composite-fiber Mark V Navy patrol boat, which absorbs wave impacts better than its aluminum predecessor. Other similar projects include development of blast-resistant tents and wood structures for the military, and concrete-filled composite forms used to construct short-span bridges.

Additional presenters spoke Monday about manufacturing techniques for more traditional construction applications that use soy products rather than formaldehyde, and about methods that make strong building products from compressed strands of bamboo and other types of wood.

Robert Noble of Noble Environmental Technologies gave a presentation on E-cor, a new product developed by his La Jolla, Calif., company that is made from recycled consumer products and processed cow manure. He said there is “really no limit” to the potential applications for his product, which is as strong as wood and lighter.

“There’s some odor, but it is sort of barnyard and you kind of get used to it,” Noble said of the product.

The conference is scheduled to conclude on Thursday.

btrotter@bangordailynews.net

460-6318