PHOTOS: Wood you like to tour the Forest Products Laboratory?

At the west end of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, just east of University Hospital, sits the home base for a 112-year-old federal effort to use the nation's forests more efficiently. Founded in 1910, the Forest Products Lab first occupied two buildings closer to the center of campus. Today, it has a campus of its own, filling several buildings built in the 1930s and 1960s.

The lab, run by the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is home to researchers studying nearly everything wood-related, from ways to make wooden buildings and products more resistant to fire, weather and bugs, to ways to make innovative plastic-like products from bits of wood and agricultural waste.

The Cap Times got a behind the scenes look at the facility and its ongoing research recently, when reporter Natalie Yahr and photographer Ruthie Hauge tagged along on a tour organized for leaders from Wisconsin's Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, Department of Safety and Professional Services and Department of Financial Institutions.

Carl Houtman, a chemical engineer in the Forest Products Lab's unit of Fiber and Chemical Sciences Research, holds a glass jug of cellulose nanocrystals while discussing its ecological application in construction products, specifically concrete. Incorporating the material, which Houtman likens to "magic pixie dust," would lower the overall carbon footprint of concrete by reducing the amount of lyme needed to cure concrete.

Bottles of cellulose nanocrystals in various states are displayed during a recent tour of the Forest Products Lab. Researchers are studying ways to use nanocrystals to create transparent products from wood, including materials much stronger than plastic, according to chemical engineer Carl Houtman.

One of the oldest buildings on the Forest Products Lab campus, the 45,000-square-foot Fiber Processing Pilot Plant was built in the 1930s to replicate industrial wood pulping and biorefinery processes on a smaller scale, allowing researchers to test things like whether a new type of postage stamp would interfere with paper recycling processes.

Sunlight streams through the arched windows of the Fiber Processing Pilot Plant at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison.

Laura Hasburgh, a materials research engineer for the Forest Products Lab's Building and Fire Sciences research unit holds up a sample of burned wood as she explains the various ways fire burns through wood structures.

A variety of materials made from wood-plastic composites sit on a table at the Forest Products Lab, alongside samples of the small wood materials that researchers are trying to find ways to use. Finding more ways to use these "smaller than a wood chip" materials would reduce the number of big trees that need to be cut down to make products, said Ronald Sabo, a materials research engineer for the Forest Products Lab's Engineered Composites Science research unit.

Ronald Sabo, a materials research engineer for the Forest Products Lab's Engineered Composites Science research unit, holds a clothes hanger made from wood-plastic composites.

A U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Forest Service sign made from wood-plastic composites is displayed during a tour of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison.

As a project leader in the Engineering Mechanics and Remote Sensing Lab, it's Steve Kalinosky's job to run tests to determine the conditions under which certain materials will break. "It's a lot of fun when you break stuff," he said after showing a series of videos of snapping beams and bridges in the various experiments he and his team have run. "We don't always break (things). Often we just push and we monitor the response."

Steve Kalinosky, a project leader in the Engineering Mechanics and Remote Sensing Lab, uses his foot to point to underground steel pylons that are used to generate resistance when testing the load-bearing capacity of wood structures.

Charles Boardman, an engineer in the Forest Products Lab's Building and Fire Sciences research unit, describes the process in which the saturation levels of wood are tested against simulated weather in a chamber called "the carwash."

Wired screws are secured in a wood panel as it is tested for moisture levels in a simulated weather chamber that researchers affectionately call "the CARWASh." The system is set up to measure the resistance/distance between the screws as the wood expands and contracts.

Charles Boardman, an engineer in the Forest Products Lab's Building and Fire Sciences research unit, leads a tour of the Chamber for Analytic Research on Wall Assemblies Exposed to Simulated Weather, or CARWASh for short. The chamber has the ability to direct simulated wind-driven rain at wood panels.

Forest Products Laboratory employees whisper to each other as engineer Charles Boardman gives a presentation on the weather simulation chamber at the Forest Products Lab.

Biological sciences technician Amy Bishell, left, and research entomologist Rachel Arango give a presentation on Forest Products Lab research to make wood more durable and resistant to pests. Researchers are studying chemical treatments, as well as methods of extracting compounds from naturally durable wood varieties to apply to less durable wood.

Wood samples, on display at the Forest Products Lab, show the damage termites can do to wood. While most of Wisconsin is outside the usual geographic range for termites, that could change as the climate changes, said Forest Products Lab research entomologist Rachel Arango, who studies insects that infest wood.

A XyloTron is used to identify varieties of wood in the Forest Products Lab's Center for Wood Anatomy Research. The tool uses mathematical models to compare a magnified image of the unknown wood to its catalog of known wood varieties. Alex Wiedenhoeft, a research botanist at FPL invented this device, and the design and pattern are open source, which allows others to use them.

Alex Wiedenhoeft, a research botanist at the Forest Products Lab's Center for Wood Anatomy Research, holds up a cross section of what he calls "the murder tree." The tree, which appears to have suffered a burn several years before crime scene investigators cut it down, was the only physical evidence in a 2010 Illinois murder case. In 2020, Wiedenhoeft served as an expert witness in the trial, explaining that the tree's injury could have been caused by the fire that the defendant allegedly set to dispose of the body.

Alex Wiedenhoeft, a research botanist at the Forest Products Lab's Center for Wood Anatomy Research, demonstrates how to use a tool called a XyloTron to identify varieties of wood. The tool uses mathematical models to compare a magnified image of the unknown wood to its catalog of known wood varieties.

Alex Wiedenhoeft, a research botanist at the Forest Products Lab's Center for Wood Anatomy Research, shows a field guide he helped create so people in other countries can identify local varieties of wood. As part of his research, Wiedenhoeft wears a magnifying lens around his neck nearly everyday.

This pallet of sliced mahogany veneer, on display in the Forest Products Lab's Center for Wood Anatomy Research, was confiscated by a U.S. customs officer in Detroit around 2012, according to research botanist Alex Wiedenhoeft. The person who tried to import this wood claimed it was another type of wood and declared its value at around $9,000. A customs agent correctly determined that the shipment was mahogany, worth around $250,000 and illegal to import because it's endangered. "It has the same legal status as if it were elephant ivory," Wiedenhoeft said.

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