Preliminary investigation into use of woodwool and strength development of woodwool-lime based mixtures

Abstract

Wood is a naturally renewable house building material, and is significantly more environmentally friendly than other materials such as steel or PVC-U. However it has been estimated that businesses in the UK produce three million tonnes of wood waste each year such as woodwool, which are shredded wood fibres with variable sizes. This may come from manufacturing processes or from packaging. As disposal of waste becomes ever more expensive for businesses, recycling and reusing wood waste will often be a more cost effective option. There is a need to explore potential for the innovative use of woodwool. This paper reports the preliminary results of an investigation of the strength development of woodwool-lime blended mixtures, which could be used to make building blocks or panels for internal partition purposes. Various water to lime and woodwool to lime ratios were used in the mix design. It was found that the woodwool-lime mixtures demand high water content due to high water absorption of woodwool. The strength development of woodwool-lime mixtures is slow and the replacement of lime with GGBS enhances long term strength.