INNOVATION

SINCE HARDWOOD IS GETTING SCARCER AND MORE EXPENSIVE ALL THE TIME , NOOTEBOOM IS LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVES FOR THE PRODUCTION OF THEIR TRAILER FLOORS . BAMBOO COMPOSITE HAS SO FAR PROVED TO BE AN ATTRACTIVE , DURABLE ALTERNATIVE .

Hardwood is very strong and exceptionally durable . However , it has one major disadvantage : it will become scarcer in the coming years . The trees , from which the hardwood floorboards are cut , grow very slowly ; it takes 35 to 50 years before they are mature enough to be cut . Nooteboom only uses the top-quality timber from the centre of the trunk .

ALTERNATIVE This scarcity also affects the price . Therefore it comes as no surprise that Nooteboom began to look for alternatives for the hardwood floors they are using now . An important starting point was that the alternative had to be equally as good as the current floors but preferably it would have even better specifications for application in abnormal transport . From this investigation bamboo composite emerged as the best alternative . In the meantime Nooteboom has been testing it in practice for nearly two years with extremely positive results .

WEIGHT SAVING One advantage of bamboo is its low weight ; with a floor thickness of 30mm , as used on a Teletrailer , bamboo is 100 to 300 kilogrammes lighter per cubic metre than hardwood . For the floor of e . g . a flatbed semi-trailer , approximately one cubic metre wood is used , which means a considerable weight saving . Another important advantage is that bamboo expands only by 1 percent when it gets wet ; this is 4 to 5 percent for hardwood . Bamboo has a slightly higher adhesion coefficient than hardwood . When testing it in actual practice bamboo , being a composite material has proved to be warp-proof even after years of use . And the product also looks good .

TABLE COMPARING BAMBOOTEQ VERSUS KERUING HARDWOOD , THICKNESS OF THE BOARDS 28MM

Properties Bambooteq Keruing Relative hardness 2.4x 1x Swell in water ( width ) 0.15 % 4.15 % Swell in water ( length ) 2.14 % 3.97 % Density [ kg / m3 ) 630 800

ABUNDANT AVAILABILITY An additional advantage is that bamboo – one of the fastest growing plants in the world – is widely available . Worldwide there are more than 1,500 species of bamboo . The kind BambooTeq uses is the fastest growing plant species in the world . In just a few months this bamboo can grow to be 20 metres high or more ; after five years the bamboo is ready to be harvested . During the production there is hardly any waste , since all of the cut material is used . The bamboo we use comes mainly from sub-tropical southern China ; no giant pandas live in this area .

EXCLUSIVE COOPERATION Resin is one of the things that are added to the bamboo to create the bamboo composite . This gives it its extremely strong properties . BambooTeq has already developed one variety of 30mm thick boards from laminated long strips of bamboo - to be used on flatbed semi-trailers . A second variety of 40mm or 50mm thick boards is composed of several layers . This version is suitable for low-loaders and semi low-loaders . In cooperation with the supplier Nooteboom will further develop the composite floor for special transport . At the moment the composite floor is available as option for part of the Nooteboom vehicle programme . Although the bamboo floor is currently slightly more expensive than the one in hardwood , many customers have shown interest in bamboo composite and it has already been used on various vehicles . This trend is expected to grow in the coming years especially since in the future the difference in price will become smaller and this composite floor will be developed further . ■

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