Superwood

Timber piles are often used to support a range of civil infrastructure systems, such as buildings, bridges, and coastal structures. However, with the development of steel and concrete piles, the use of timber piles has steadily declined as timber piles have low stiffness and strength with significant variability, limiting their applications to light driving conditions and lightly loaded structures. This project aims to explore the potential of nano-engineered superwood to develop a high stiffness and strength, durable, and cost-effective superwood pile foundation system for heavily loaded and resilient civil infrastructure. The remarkable elastic modulus and strength of superwood are expected to enable superwood piles to exceed the performance of the same-size timber and concrete piles (precast or prestressed-precast) for both service (reducing settlement and lateral deflection) and strength (increasing pile axial and lateral load capacities) limit states.

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