7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beyond 'Understanding Wood', April 25, 2000
'Wood, the internal optimization of trees' is an excellent book for those who want to understand how the mechanical properties of wood come about, but only for those readers who are somewhat theoretically minded. For the practical purpose of how to handle wood and to predict how a given piece of wood will behave R.Bruce Hoadley's 'Understanding Wood' is the book to read and to have. For those who want to go beyond the directly practical this is the book. It is reasonably easy to read, at least for those who remember some physics from high school, especially because it is lavishly illustrated with clarifying drawings. The book takes a look at the mechanical forces that trees are subject to and explains how the tree counters by optimizing its wood to deal with those forces. It does this at several levels, from the tree as a whole down to the orientation of microfibrils in the cell wall. By looking at a tree as a mechanical machine it complements explanations of a tree as a machine to transports fluids, such as put forth by Zimmerman e.a.
Note that this book is one of several by Mattheck e.a. which all have the same basic content, and even the same drawings, but which differ in the groups targeted. There is a very similar one aimed at those involved in tree upkeep, which shows how defects in trees can be diagnosed from looking at the tree, the patterns in the bark, etc.
However, this book is definitely the one to read for those primarily interested in wood, and its mechanical properties. It might well be destined to become a classic in its field!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book on an important subject, August 22, 2005
Wood is one of the most important building materials known to man, and probably one of the few accessible to all humans regardless of geography or demographics. Whether it is an old man using a cane, a child climbing a tree, or people building houses, we all use wood for structural purposes. Because of this, the study of wood and how to use it in buildings, vehicles, and other structures is quite advanced. But why is wood so useful? The answer to this is that trees use it for the same purpose; structural support. This is the topic of this short and highly readable book.
The authors delves into the different shapes and sizes of trees, the distribution of branches on a tree, and of leaves on a branch. The book also describes how and why different trees have wood with different properties, how the wood in a tree changes with position in the tree and the tree's age. Finally the book examines how the wood in trees deflect, deform and grow to adjust to environmental stresses such as rainfall, snowfall, wind, cracks, lightning strikes, and shade. The text is quite easy to read for anyone who has taken college level physics or mechanics. There are a lot of figures and diagrams that illustrate the stresses trees have to withstand such as torque, load balance, wind resistance, swelling and contraction due to water absorption and loss, temperature gradients, etc...
Overall, this book is highly insightful, very readable, and quite interesting. I highly recommend it.
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