Revolutionizing Wood Construction: Densified Integrated Wood with Voronoi Structures

Drawing inspiration from naturally tough Voronoi structures such as the nacre component of mollusk seashells, this study presents an innovative method for transforming the widely used, but inherently brittle, wooden slats into a high-performance structural material. This research pioneers the use of a Voronoi-based architecture, traditionally found in nonstructural components, in the realm of primary construction materials. By softening the wooden slats through steam and then compacting and integrating them using adhesive and hot pressing, we obtained a highly dense and misaligned structure. The resulting wooden Voronoi composite exhibits a 10-fold and 3-fold increase in transverse strength and elongation compared with natural wood, respectively. Experimental assessments under quasi-static loading and finite element analysis demonstrate that the compact 'cell' of the composite controls the strength, while the crack tortuosity between the polygonal cells and the ductile adhesive enhances toughness. The Voronoi architecture improves the load-bearing capacity, stability, and toughness of the wood-based composite, making it a low-cost and environmentally friendly alternative for engineering applications.