Plywood

plywood

[′plī‚wu̇d]

(materials)

A material composed of thin sheets of wood glued together, with the grains of adjacent sheets oriented at right angles to each other.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

plywood

An engineered panel composed of an odd number of thin sheets permanently bonded together, sometimes faced with a veneer. See also: Masonite

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

plywood

Structural wood made of three or more layers of veneer (usually an odd number), joined with glue; usually laid with the grain of adjoining plies at right angles.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Plywood

 

a wood material consisting of two or more sheets of debarked veneer glued together. Birch veneer is the type most commonly used in plywood production, but alder, beech, pine, and other types may also be used. Plywood is usually built up with from three to five plies, with the grains in adjacent plies arranged to run perpendicular to each other. Both synthetic thermosetting adhesives, such as phenol-formaldehyde and carbamide (urea-formaldehyde) resins, and natural adhesives, such as albumin and casein glues, are used for bonding. Sheets of plywood range in thickness from 1 to 19 mm; the length and width range from 725 to 2,440 mm.

Among the special types of plywood are those classified as resin-impregnated (with improved water resistance), decorative (with a finished exterior veneer), and shaped (formed in a compression mold). Plywood has fairly high longitudinal and transverse mechanical strength, low overall density, and significantly lower anisotropy than natural wood. Plywoods are used extensively in the production of motor vehicles, railroad cars, ships, aircraft, furniture, and containers; they are also used to make cabinets for radio and television sets.

REFERENCE

Kirillov, A. N., and E. I. Karasev. Proizvodstvo kleenoi fanery. Moscow, 1968.

I. K. CHERKASOV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.