Message-ID: <346B549C.1E90@avalon.net> Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:27:24 -0800 From: Al Khattat <mailto:ssi@AVALON.NET> Subject: Seminar Report: An Inevitable Environmental Technology To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL
An Inevitable Environmental Technology with Economic Promise
An International Seminar held at the Oakdale Research Campus
Iowa City, USA. October 16, 1997
SEMINAR REPORT
CIRCULATION: This report is being sent to seminar participants and to
a selected list of individuals and organizations that may find the
information useful. It is also circulated to several science, engineering,
economic development and environmental Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
on the Internet. All comments, suggestions and corrections are
encouraged and welcomed.
HEADINGS: SEMINAR OBJECTIVE. PARTICIPANTS. SEMINAR
LITERATURE. SEMINAR CONTENT. TOPICS BROUGHT INTO
FOCUS DURING THE SEMINAR. CONCLUDING REMARKS.
SEMINAR OBJECTIVE
Destruction of the world's natural forests continues unabated, despite a
clear consensus on its grave environmental consequences for the planet.
International will for corrective action is absent because of the high short-
term costs to countries and individuals.
Now there is an engineering technology that amounts to a sustainable
development tool which could reverse those costs into economic and
social dividends. The LPSA system enables the use of juvenile forest trees
(a worthless waste at present) as a sustainable, low-cost and high-quality
source of structural wood for construction, instead of lumber from the
mature trees.
The immediate purpose of the seminar was to familiarize organizations
and professionals with this technology, its timeless implications and its
global applicability.
PARTICIPANTS
Attending participants represented the engineering professions, the
academia, small business and federal and state agencies working in the
fields of forestry, the environment and economic development. The
seminar was organized solely by Sustainable Science International (SSI),
an engineering research and innovation company, the owner and
developer of the LPSA technology.
Thanks are due to those who contributed opinions, ideas and proposals.
Several people, especially in Europe, have indicated their interest in
attending a repeat seminar. If SSI receives enough requests, another
seminar will be arranged.
SEMINAR LITERATURE
A folder of self-contained documents that served as a reference for the
participants is available from SSI for $20 (within the U.S.) and $30
(outside the U.S.).
SEMINAR CONTENT
Three main topics were addressed during the seminar, through engineering
models, a slides show and a 22-minute video film:
1. The state of the art in timber design and construction.
Commercially, the future of current lumber-based methods and
industries is totally dependent on increasingly scarce mature
timber resources. Technically, jointing was identified as one of
two major problems barring any comprehensive stress analysis and
performance prediction of timber structures. The other problem
is the lack of precise engineering properties of cut timber
(lumber). Clearly, lumber is the end product of slicing through,
and hence destroying, the natural growth-ring structure of mature
timber logs.
2. Background information about small diameter timber (SDT) and
past attempts to utilize it in construction. These attempts had
concentrated on devising jointing systems via metal implants at
the ends of SDT logs. Slicing and / or drilling through a log is not
only a skilled and costly operation. It also weakens the crack-
prone log and creates a joint of unknown strength and future
performance. Testing (a further expense) may give a statistical
assessment of the instantaneous strength of the joint but NOT
about future performance. Analysis of such joints / structures is
impossible.
3. History of the LPSA project, its potential application areas and
future directions of development. Main application areas
identified were bridges and buildings of any size, shape and
function, other highway structures, power transmission towers and
playground and garden structures. Energy absorption properties,
and hence gainful use of LPSA structures in earthquake,
hurricanes and flood regions, were pointed out.
Several LPSA research prototypes were shown being constructed.
Some still unpublished results were displayed about the long-term
behavior, under service loads, of SDT in actual structures. These
results point to SDT as a superb well-definable engineering
material.
TOPICS BROUGHT INTO FOCUS DURING THE SEMINAR
The following realities in the U.S., which most likely hold true worldwide,
are glaring examples of wasted resources and / or vast opportunities that
can be effectively addressed by the LPSA technology:
A. Thinning a forest or a woodland is expensive because it produces
a worthless harvest. Non-thinning can also be costly. According
to information from a USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
Forest Service representative, there are forests in the Northwest
U.S. which have grown so dense (due to non-thinning) that they
now need to be destroyed through controlled burning because they
constitute a fire hazard.
B. The State of Iowa as a case study: Iowa is not famous for being a
timber-producing state. Yet, according to USDA statistics, there
is about one billion cubic feet (over 28 million cubic meters) of
timber that is too small or too short to be of commercial value or
use. A fraction of this volume, if marketed at the same price as
the cheapest softwood lumber, would create a primary forest
products industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually!
C. There is an acute and large-scale need for a low-cost durable
technology for timber bridge design and construction, especially
small- and medium-size bridges. The WIT (Wood in
Transportation) Program literature indicates that "with over 41
percent of the 578,000 highway bridges across the nation in need
of repair or replacement, a significant opportunity exists in the
United States to improve rural transportation networks and
revitalize rural economies by using wood for bridge construction".
D. Four and a half million utility poles are discarded annually,
according to "BioCycle". At least some of these poles would
make excellent structural components for many a bridge.
Moreover, plywood veneer factories produce thousands of hard
cores every day. These could also be used as valuable building
components.
The LPSA system goes far beyond providing a low-cost, reliable and
quantifiable jointing system. It provides an engineering mechanics
framework for analysis, design and construction that is a generation ahead
of current methods of timber engineering. This framework is only
possible because the two major problems identified in (1) above are
solved. Solutions are via the LPSA's slide-fit jointing mechanism and the
more precise and predictable growth-ring structure of SDT, respectively.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Through the LPSA system, small diameter timber (SDT), a discarded by-
product of forest thinning, is transformed into a sustainable economic
development and infra-structure building tool. Sustainable forest
management is made profitable for the first time. The technology
inaugurates a new inter-discipline of sustainable science and technology,
creating wealth out of conservation.
The LPSA project provides a medium for invention and innovation in
which scientists, engineers, environmentalists, foresters, forest products
industries, entrepreneurs, and economic development specialists may
contribute creatively for a better quality of life on this planet.