BUILDING BOARDS

Mary Ann Venturina Bulanadi

The term building board is a very general term which covers a wide variety of materials. Building boards can be made of wood, compressed sawdust or vegetable fibre gypsum plaster etc.

TYPES OF BUILDING BOARDS

Plywood Hardboard Insulating fiberboard Chipboard Particle board Gypsum board Straw board Asbestos-cement board Corkboard Paperboard

PLYWOOD
a type of manufactured wood made from thin sheets of wood. The layers are glued together so that adjacent plies have their wood grain at right angles to each other for greater strength. There are usually an odd number of plies, as the asymmetry makes the board less prone to warping. A common reason for using plywood instead of plain wood is its resistance to cracking, shrinkage, twisting/warping, and its general high degree of strength. SIZE:

US: 4 by 8 Metric: 1220mm. by 2440mm. The most common thicknesses are 4, 6, 9 and 12 mm.

Types of Plywood

Tropical plywood
usually made of Meranti or mixed species of tropical wood in the Asian region. boasts its superiority over softwood plywood due to its density, strength, evenness of layers, and high quality. It is the most preferred choice for construction purposes in many regions.

Types of Plywood

Softwood plywood
usually made either of Douglas fir or spruce, pine, and fir (collectively known as spruce-pine-fir or SPF), and is typically used for construction and industrial purposes.

Types of Plywood

Hardwood plywood
used for some demanding end uses.
Birch plywood is characterized by its excellent strength, stiffness and resistance to creep. It has a high planar shear strength and impact resistance, which make it especially suitable for heavy-duty floor and wall structures. Birch plywood has excellent surface hardness, and damage- and wear-resistance. Oriented plywood construction has a high wheel-carrying capacity.

Types of Plywood

Decorative plywood
Usually faced with hardwood, including red oak, birch, maple, lauan (Philippine mahogany) and a large number of other hardwoods.

Special purpose plywood

like aircraft plywood and marine plywood.

HARDBOARD
also called high-density fiberboard, not to be confused with Hardwood. a type of fiberboard, which is an engineered wood product. It is similar to particle board and medium-density fiberboard, but is denser and much stronger and harder because it is made out of exploded wood fibers that have been highly compressed. It is used in construction and furniture. Hardboard is produced in either a wet or dry process.

INSULATING FIBERBOARD
It is a rigid, organic insulation board composed of wood, cane or vegetable fibers mixed with various types of fillers and binders. The insulation may be either asphalt impregnated or asphalt coated to enhance its moisture resistance. Fiberboard insulation is only available in flat boards in 24" x 48", 48" x 48", and 48" x 96" sizes. The common thicknesses of fiberboard insulation are 1/2" 1", 1 1/2" and 2", although not all thicknesses are available from all manufacturers. Fiberboard insulation is also available in two densities, normal (Grade 1) and high (Grade 2).

CHIPBOARD

Gluing together wood particles with an adhesive, under heat and pressure makes chipboard. This creates a rigid board with a relatively smooth surface. Chipboard is available in a number of densities: -normal, medium and high-density.
Normal density is fairly soft. High-density is solid and hard.

PARTICLE BOARD
is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded. Particleboard is a composite material. Particleboard is cheaper, denser and more uniform than conventional wood and plywood and is substituted for them when appearance and strength are less important than cost.

GYPSUM BOARD
Gypsum board is widely used for internal walls and ceilings by the construction industry, and is a material of growing importance in the do-it-yourself sector. It is manufactured by calcining gypsum into plaster, making a slurry from the plaster, and passing the slurry through machines which shape, set, and cut into a board.

STRAWBOARD

A kind of structural insulated panel (SIP) designed to replace 2x4 stud and drywall construction for both interior and exterior walls, as well as provide load and non-bearing ceilings, roofing, doors, flooring, and prefabricated buildings. These environmental friendly, solid panels are made of all natural fibrous raw materials, mainly wheat and rice straw.

ASBESTOS-CEMENT BOARD

A dense, rigid, board containing a high proportion of asbestos fibers bonded with portland cement; resistant to fire, flame, and weathering; has low resistance to heat flow. Used as a building material in sheet form and corrugated sheeting.

CORKBOARD

A construction and insulating sheet material made of compressed and baked granules of cork.

PAPERBOARD
a 'vegetable-fibre web' formed from a water suspension. Paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.25 mm/0.010 in or 10 points) than paper.

References:
http://www.icipaints.co.uk/support/specifications/prep/substrat es/walls/boards.jsp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plywood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardboard http://www.benchmarkinc.com/searcharticles/articles/Perspective%20Articles/issue4 6b.html http://www.design-technology.org/chipboard.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_board http://www.borax.com/pdfs/gypsum.pdf http://blog.greenhomebuilding.com/2008/06/strawboardpanels.htm http://www.answers.com/topic/asbestos-cement-boardasbestos-cement-wallboard-asbestos-sheeting-1 http://www.answers.com/topic/corkboard Bayona, Jeddalie P. 2ID2