Merbau is a type of wood that can be found in Southeast Asia, Australia, and eastern Africa. This is a very tall growing tree that is very popular and well-known for its extreme durability.
Today, we want to do a closer examination of merbau as a type of wood to see exactly how strong and durable it really is. There are a variety of factors that we will consider to determine the strength of this wood. Let’s figure out how much it’s going to take to damage a piece of merbau.
Is Merbau a Hardwood or a Softwood?
Merbau is an angiosperm and flowering tree, which means that it has flowers that bloom. Furthermore, it is also a deciduous tree, which means that it will lose its leaves during the colder seasons.
Merbau is technically a type of hardwood, and it is one of the harder types of wood that can be found in the world. It scores fairly high in terms of all of the factors that we are about to take a look at. Let’s figure out just how strong merbau actually is.
Merbau Wood Strength: All You Need to Know
When determining how strong a piece of wood is, there are five main factors that need to be considered. These factors include the compressive strength, bending strength, stiffness, hardness, and density of the wood.
Compressive Strength
Merbau features a compressive strength of 10,650 lbf/in2 (73.4 MPa).
For reference, there really aren’t many types of wood that have a higher compressive strength than this. The vast majority of softwoods and hardwoods that can be found in North America are not nearly as strong in terms of compression strength.
However, two types of wood that do have a higher compressive strength are Gaboon ebony and olivewood. This is not a type of wood that compresses very easily.
The compressive strength of wood may also be referred to as the crushing strength. This refers to how much weight a piece of wood can handle parallel to the grain. for an example that you can visualize, picture a table with the legs standing up vertically. How much weight can you put on that table before the legs buckle and give out?
Bending Strength
The bending strength of merbau wood is 21,060 lbf/in2 (145.2 MPa).
For reference, the bending strength is much higher than virtually every single type of wood that can be found in North America and higher than most types of wood that can be found throughout the whole world. Olivewood and Gaboon ebony have higher bending strengths, although not many others do.
Bending strength may also be referred to as the modulus of rupture. This refers to how much weight a piece of wood can take perpendicular to its grain.
For example, imagine a stick that has been mounted horizontally on a wall so that nothing is supporting it. How much weight could you hang on the end of that stick before it snaps and goes plummeting downwards?
Stiffness
Merbau features a modulus of elasticity of 2,310,000 lbf/in2 (15.93).
Again, this wood is stiffer than the majority of all wood. Some of the only types of wood that are stiffer than merbau include olivewood, black ironwood, and Gaboon ebony. It takes a whole lot of weight to cause a piece of merbau to bend.
This measurement may also be referred to as the modulus of elasticity. This refers to how much weight a piece of wood can take in its center before it begins to sag or bend.
For an easy-to-visualize example, imagine yourself standing on a board that is being supported on either end. How much weight would you have to apply to that board for it to begin to sag underneath you?
Hardness
Merbau features a Janka hardness rating of 1,840 lbf.
As far as both North American hardwoods and softwoods go, merbau is significantly harder than the vast majority of them.
As has been the case with the other sections, not many types of wood are much harder than merbau. However, some of the other types of wood that we have mentioned today are harder, which include olive, Gaboon ebony, and black ironwood.
In case you don’t know, the hardness of wood refers quite literally to how hard it is. In other words, the question here is how resilient a certain piece of wood is towards physical impacts, mainly scratching and denting. This is usually measured on the Janka hardness scale.
Density
Merbau features a density of 51 lbs/ft3 (815 kg/m3).
For reference, this is heavier or denser than a majority of wood species. Black ironwood, Gaboon ebony, and olive wood are again some of the only species that can compete.
The density of wood simply refers to how heavy it is based on a certain size, which is usually measured in pounds per cubic foot or kilograms per cubic meter.
Is Merbau Wood Strong?
In the grand scheme of things, yes this is a very strong type of wood. It scores very high in terms of all five of the determining factors as discussed above. It has both a very high compressive and bending strength, is extremely stiff, and hard, and is super heavy as well.
When it comes down to it, this is one of the strongest, hardest, most structurally sound types of wood around. It can bear a lot of weight and may be used for many different construction purposes. It is a very popular type of wood used in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Australia, for this exact reason. Of course, it’s also not a very cheap material.
Summary
The bottom line here is that if you need a good type of wood to use, merbau is always a fantastic option, especially if you need something that is weight-bearing and structurally sound.