Formlagenholz-Plus

The ma­te­rials mold­ed ply­wood and lam­i­nat­ed ve­neer lum­ber were de­vel­oped in the 19th cen­tu­ry as a cost-ef­fec­tive sub­sti­tute for solid wood prod­ucts. This changed at the be­gin­n­ing of the 20th cen­tu­ry when the po­ten­tial of this lightweight ma­te­rial for man­u­fac­tur­ing shaped com­po­nents even air­craft fuse­lages in mono­coque con­struc­tion was rec­og­nized and fur­ther de­vel­oped in­to a high-tech ma­te­rial. Af­ter World War II, de­sign­ers such as Al­var Aal­to and Char­les and Ray Eames uti­l­ized th­ese ad­vance­ments to cre­ate fur­ni­ture de­signs with a rev­o­lu­tio­nary, in­de­pen­dent for­mal lan­guage and ma­te­rial ef­fi­cien­cy. Since then, mold­ed ply­wood and lam­i­nat­ed ve­neer lum­ber have been pri­mar­i­ly used in seat­ing fur­ni­ture ei­ther as a hid­den cham­pi­on con­cealed be­neath up­hol­stery, as con­tract fur­ni­ture in schools, uni­ver­si­ties, mu­se­ums, and in­sti­tu­tions, or as the foun­da­tion of many de­sign icons. In the in­dus­try, formalde­hyde-based ad­h­e­sives are pri­mar­i­ly used to bond the in­di­vi­d­u­al ve­neer lay­ers. Th­ese ad­h­e­sives pose health risks and orig­i­nate from non-re­ne­w­able sources. The over­all goal of this pro­ject is there­fore to re­duce ad­h­e­sive con­sump­tion in lam­i­nat­ed and mold­ed ply­wood com­po­nents while in­creas­ing their func­tio­n­al val­ue through load-spe­cif­ic de­sign and pos­si­ble func­tio­n­al­iza­tion. To achieve this, a glu­ing and reg­is­tra­tion pro­cess will be de­vel­oped that en­ables se­lec­tive bond­ing and struc­tu­ral op­ti­miza­tion of the com­po­nents. Mold­ed ply­wood and lam­i­nat­ed ve­neer lum­ber will thus be trans­formed in­to a gra­di­ent ma­te­rial, whose prop­er­ties can range from rigid to flex­i­ble within a sin­gle com­po­nent, with seam­less tran­si­tions. Po­ten­tial ap­pli­ca­tions in­clude op­ti­miz­ing seat shells, re­plac­ing con­ven­tio­n­al damp­ing, spring, and cushion­ing el­e­ments, and in­te­grat­ing func­tio­n­al com­po­nents such as fur­ni­ture hinges. High-tech ap­pli­ca­tions, such as shock ab­sor­bers in the au­to­mo­tive sec­tor, are al­so con­ceiv­able.