Hardwoods like steel can prevent bullets

Materials researchers develop a simple process that turns a wooden sheet into a super-hard material like steel that can block the bullet.

The new, inexpensive technique developed by the team at the University of Maryland, in a paper published in the journal Nature, includes boiling a block of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulphite to remove the compounds. hardener. The wood was immediately compressed at high pressure and heated to 100 degrees Celsius, the International Business Times reported yesterday.

Experimental firing on wood material. (Video: University of Maryland).

The finished material is 20% smaller, three times denser, and possesses some impressive but stiffer properties. It is 50 times more compressive and has a pulling capacity of 11.5 times that of wood. original These characteristics make the wood as hard as steel but lighter than steel. Not only the impact force better than the product, the product is also moisture-proof and can mold into any shape during compression.

The thickened wood can even block the road. In the study, researchers fired stainless steel bullets with airguns, which could easily pierce a regular but unreachable wooden planks piled up with multiple layers of equal thickness. .

The team said the technique could create a new layer of hard and lightweight hardwood materials that could be used as a substitute for steel in construction, to produce vehicles or even to manufacture ammunition panels. .