If you are planning on building something around your home, whether indoors or outdoors, using the right kind of lumber makes a big difference. One of the most popular types of wood that you could use around your home is ash.
Ash is very popular, it’s durable, it’s not overly expensive, and can be used for a variety of purposes. That said, you might not know if ash is a hardwood or softwood, and you might be curious in terms of how strong it is too. This is exactly what we are here to figure out today. Let’s determine just how strong this type of wood is.
Is Ash a Hardwood or a Softwood?
Ash is a deciduous tree that is part of the angiosperm family, which means that it does lose its leaves during the colder seasons, and it is a flower-bearing tree. On that note, this does mean that ash is a hardwood, and in fact, is a relatively hard type of hardwood that can be found in North America.
As far as the different types of wood in North America are concerned, this is one of the harder ones. Ash tends to be very hard, durable, fairly stiff, and dense, and also has a fairly high compressive rating, stiffness rating, and more.
Ash Wood Strength
What we want to do now is to figure out exactly how strong this wood is. To do this, we are going to take a look at five main parameters that determine the strength of wood, which include compressive strength, bending strength, stiffness, hardness, and density.
Now, there are actually many different types of ash wood that you can use, so we do want to take a look at all of the major ones. This is going to include black, blue, white, green, red, and European ash.
Compressive Strength
Here we have listed the compressive strengths of all of the different types of ash wood that we are looking at today:
- Black ash – 5,970 lbf per square inch (41.2 MPa)
- Blue ash – 6,980 lbf per square inch (48.1 MPa)
- White ash – 7,410 lbf per square inch (51.1 MPa)
- Green ash – 7,080 lbf per square inch (48.8 MPa)
- Red ash – 10,150 lbf per square inch (70.0 MPa)
- European ash – 7,400 lbf per square inch (51.0 MPa)
The compressive strength of wood, otherwise known as the crushing strength, refers to how much weight a piece of wood can take parallel to the grain. In other words, how much weight can that table leg hold up vertically before it buckles?
Red ash is the strongest of all types of ash examined today, and it’s stronger than most hardwoods and softwoods found in North America, particularly pine, spruce, fir, maple, alder, and more. This means that red ash does have impressive compressive strength, and is absolutely structurally sound on this front.
Bending Strength
Here we have listed the bending strengths for all of the different types of ash wood that we are looking at today:
- Black ash – 12,600 lbf per square inch (86.9 MPa)
- Blue ash – 13,800 lbf per square inch (95.2 MPa)
- White ash – 15,000 lbf per square inch (103.5 MPa)
- Green ash – 14,100 lbf per square inch (97.2 MPa)
- Red ash – 19,430 lbf per square inch (134.0 MPa)
- European ash – 15,020 lbf per square inch (103.6 MPa)
When we are talking about bending strength, we are talking about what is known as the modulus of rupture. This refers to the amount of load or weight that a piece of wood can take perpendicular to the grain, or in other words, how much weight you could hang on a piece of wood horizontally before it starts to bend.
An example of this would be how much weight you could hang on a wooden peg that is suspended horizontally from a wall.
As you can see, red ash is once again the strongest of all types of the ash tree, and also stronger than the vast majority of hardwoods and softwoods found in North America. Red ash is stronger than maple, alder, red oak, pine, spruce, Douglas fir, and swamp mahogany. In other words, it takes a whole lot to make red ash bend to the point where it snaps.
Stiffness
Here we have listed the stiffness ratings for all of the different types of ash wood that we are looking at today:
- Black ash – 1,600,000 lbf per square inch (11.00 GPa)
- Blue ash – 1,400,000lbf per square inch (9.66 GPa)
- White ash – 1,740,000 lbf per square inch (12.00 GPa)
- Green ash – 1,660,000 lbf per square inch (11.40 GPa)
- Red ash – 2,755,000 lbf per square inch (19.00 GPa)
- European ash – 1,785,000 lbf per square inch (12.31 GPa)
The stiffness of wood is also known as the modulus of elasticity. This refers to how much a piece of wood will bend when a load is placed perpendicular to the wood grain. In other words, how much weight can be applied to a piece of wood before it begins to sag? An example of this would be piling bricks on top of the center of a 2×4 until it starts to bend.
Red ash is by far the strongest of all ash types on this front, and in fact, stronger than virtually all other types of wood native to North America. In fact, even the weaker types of ash in terms of the elastic modulus are on par with the strongest types of wood native to North America.
Hardness
Here we have listed the hardness ratings for all of the different types of ash wood that we are looking at today:
- Black ash – 850 lbf
- Blue ash – 1,290 lbf
- White ash – 1,320 lbf
- Green ash – 1,200 lbf
- Red ash – 1,890 lbf
- European ash – 1,480 lbf
The hardness of the wood simply refers to how hard the surface area is, or in other words, how resistant the surface of the wood is to physical impacts, scratching, and denting. The harder a piece of wood is, the less susceptible it is going to be to all of those types of physical damage. This is generally measured on the Janka hardness scale.
Red ash is the hardest of all ash types looked at today, and yes, as is the case with most other sections as well, it is harder than the vast majority of wood found in North America.
Density
Here we have listed the weights or densities for all of the different types of ash wood that we are looking at today.
- Black ash – 34 lbs per cubic foot (545 kg per cubic meter)
- Blue ash – 40 lbs per cubic foot (640 kg per cubic meter)
- White ash – 42 lbs per cubic foot (675 kg per cubic meter)
- Green ash – 40 lbs per cubic foot (640 kg per cubic meter)
- Red ash – 45.2 lbs per cubic foot (725 kg per cubic meter)
- European ash – 42 lbs per cubic foot (675 kg per cubic meter)
For those who do not know, the density of wood is quite simply how heavy it is, or to be specific, how heavy a piece of wood is in regard to its specific size. This is generally going to be measured in either pounds per cubic foot or kilograms per cubic meter.
The denser a piece of wood is, the heavier it is going to be given a certain area. How heavy a piece of wood is can make a big difference in terms of durability and how easy it is to work with.
Red ash is the heaviest of all ash types looked at today and is in fact heavier when compared to most North American hardwoods and softwoods.
Is Ash Strong?
In the grand scheme of things, yes, ash is quite strong. As far as North American hardwoods and softwoods go, it features moderate-to-high compressive strength, bending strength, hardness, stiffness, and density.
It’s on par with hard maple and much harder and stronger than soft maple. It’s also harder and stronger than spruce, Douglas fir, and white pine.
It’s on par with the strongest types of mahogany too, with about half of the types of ash being stronger than red oak, and all being much stronger than alder. There are of course harder types of wood out there, but most aren’t from North America, with ones like ebony, olivewood, rosewood, and ironwood all being much stronger.
Summary
As far as North American hardwood trees go, these are some of the harder and stronger types of hardwood that can be found. If you are looking for some really strong wood that is highly rated across the board, ash is always a good option, particularly red, white, and European ash.