EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS – While plenty of cannabis goes up in smoke in coffee shops around the Netherlands, Dutch researchers have found a new use for it — as an environmentally friendly building material to rival cement or steel.
They have used hemp — a variety of cannabis which has many industrial applications including in textiles and insulation — and flax — the plant that linen is made of — to make an experimental footbridge to test the materials’ load-bearing properties.
“Actually it’s the first ‘bio-based’ bridge in the world, as far as we know,” said Rijk Blok, an assistant professor of structural design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
The hemp and flax fibers are combined in a resin that is stuck to a core made of polylactic acid, a polymer also made of plant material, to form the span of the 14-meter (46-foot) bridge over a stream on the university campus.
The developers — at several Dutch colleges and companies — are using sensors to monitor the bridge’s performance as people walk and run over it for a year.
They first had to demonstrate that the bridge could withstand a load of 500 kilograms per square meter in laboratory stress tests before building permission was granted.
“This was our research — trying to find out: Can they be used in a structural load-bearing capacity? And this bridge is the proof,” Blok said.
The Japan Times via Reuters/Jan. 20, 2017
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...d-worlds-first-bio-based-bridge/#.WII1RvkrKM8
Illustration/photo: Materia
Newshawk Crew
-
Dear Drugs-Forum readers: We are a small non-profit that runs one of the most read drug information & addiction help websites in the world. We serve over 4 million readers per month, and have costs like all popular websites: servers, hosting, licenses and software. To protect our independence we do not run ads. We take no government funds. We run on donations which average $25. If everyone reading this would donate $5 then this fund raiser would be done in an hour. If Drugs-Forum is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online another year by donating whatever you can today. Donations are currently not sufficient to pay our bills and keep the site up. Your help is most welcome. Thank you.
PLEASE HELP Dismiss Notice
Japan Boasts World’s First ‘Bio-Based’ Hemp Bridge, Designed in the Netherlands
-
Share This Article
About Author
BT2H is a retired news editor and writer from the NYC area who, for health reasons, retired to a southern US state early, and where BT2H continues to write and to post drug-related news to DF.
Comments
To make a comment simply sign up and become a member!
