Abstract
Wood warping is a phenomenon known as a deformation in wood that occurs when changes in moisture content cause an unevenly volumetric change due to fiber orientation. Here we present an investigation of wood warped objects that were fabricated by 3D printing. Similar to natural wood warping, water evaporation causes volume decrease of the printed object, but in contrast, the printing pathway pattern and flow rate dictate the direction of the alignment and its intensity, all of which can be predesigned and affect the resulting structure after drying. The fabrication of the objects was performed by an extrusion-based 3D printing technique that enables the deposition of water-based inks into 3D objects. The printing ink was composed of 100% wood-based materials, wood flour, and plant-extracted natural binders cellulose nanocrystals, and xyloglucan, without the need for any additional synthetic resins. Two archetypal structures were printed: cylindrical structure and helices. In the former, we identified a new length scale that gauges the effect of gravity on the shape. In the latter, the structure exhibited a shape transition analogous to the opening of a seedpod, quantitatively reproducing theoretical predictions. Together, by carefully tuning the flow rate and printing pathway, the morphology of the fully dried wooden objects can be controlled. Hence, it is possible to design the printing of wet objects that will form different final 3D structures.
Highlights
Received: 3 January 2022Wood is processed by subtractive manufacturing, in which a tree trunk is first cut down, and sawn into smaller pieces
Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) freeze-dried powder was obtained from Celluforce Inc., Montreal, Canada
Wood ink was prepared by mixing wood flour (WF):cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs):XG
Summary
Wood is processed by subtractive manufacturing, in which a tree trunk is first cut down, and sawn into smaller pieces These pieces form the building blocks from which wood products can be built, or in a more modern approach, these pieces are chemically and mechanically processed with additives to produce wood plate materials (e.g., MDF or plywood). Whenever a wooden structure contains a curved, thin part, it is formed by bending a flat plate This limits the part to bend only in one direction, and objects that must have a double curvature, i.e., the seat of a chair, cannot be built from a plate, increasing their complexity and price [1].
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