Study On The Performance Of Wood - Plastic Composites Used In Furniture

As the essential daily necessities to life and work, furniture exists in all aspects of human life with its irreplaceable function. Wood is always the main material of furniture from ancient to modern times. With excellent characteristics of easy processing, high strength to weight ratio, good thermal and electrical insulation, high impact energy absorbing, good elasticity and plasticity, natural and beautiful texture, luster and color, wood becomes the first selection of furniture material.China is a country seriously lack forest. In order to alleviate the existing contradiction between supply and demand of timber in our country, and to advocate sustainable development strategy, many research institutions are exploring new materials that can be used for furniture.At present, the materials mostly used for furniture are medium density fiberboard, chipboard, plywood and other man-made wooden plank. They are all made of the branches of lumber and crushed aggregates processed by certain processing technology. Although the utilization rate of wood is greatly improved, the basic materials of these man-made plank are still wood. Wood resources are less and less in recent years. The man-made board industry is facing the problem of material shortage. The production enterprises contest for resources here and there, and the situation is very tense.With the maturity of production and processing technology, another new material appeared in furniture industry. It is a composite of wood and plastic, using polyethylene, polypropylene and PVC as a replacement of the usual resin adhesives, mixing more than50%of the wood powder, rice husk, straw, and other waste plant fibers into new wood materials, then processed by extrusion, mold pressing, injection molding, and other plastic processing technology. The manufactured boards and sectional materials are applied to furniture industry. The foundations of the composite of wood and plastic are high density polyethylene and wood fiber, which determines that this new material combines the characteristics of plastic and wood.To our knowledge, there is no relevant quality index exploration of wood-plastic composite in accordance with the characteristics of furniture products both at home and abroad. This topic will make function exploration to wood-plastic composites in accordance with the test methods of furniture.Through this exploratory study, we found that most of the physical and mechanical performances of wood-plastic composite are superior to those of traditional man-made wooden plank, and can be used as good material plate of furniture.