Mon, 19 June, 2023
The Materials Integrity Technology Transfer (MITT) programme has been delivering expert support to SMEs across the Tees Valley region, including Pollywood Ltd who have developed a novel composite made almost entirely from naturally grown products.
Pollywood have developed a wooden composite material made from naturally grown products that has excellent mechanical properties and can be used in a wide range of applications ranging from utility poles to F1 cars. The initial bulk application is to replace utility poles with this material.
Pollywood wanted to investigate the most suitable configuration of their composite for the utility pole application where wind is the primary loading mechanism and approached TWI for finite element analysis (FEA) supported through the MITT programme.
TWI were able to use the FEA approach to demonstrate the viability of the Pollywood design and suggest improvements that could be made to the initial approach.
TWI Support
TWI experts simulated the mechanical behaviour of a utility pole manufactured from the Pollywood material against the specified design requirements using Abaqus software. This included assessing the bending resistance and material thickness. Based on the criteria given by Pollywood, TWI were able to determine the set-up required for maximum bending resistance whilst minimising the material thickness.
Several representative models of a Pollywood composite pole were created using different configurations based on Pollywood’s design specifications. These were then assessed using real world use-case scenarios.
TWI were able to show that the Pollywood concept was able to meet the stiffness requirements for a utility pole with thinner wall section than initially expected. Further, TWI showed that by modifying the set-up, it is possible to tailor the design for different load case scenarios.
Next Steps
Pollywood are now able to demonstrate to potential customers, using the FEA results, that their concept is suitable for the application of utility poles. They are now in a position to investigate manufacturing strategies and review other possible applications where their material may be applicable.
The Materials Integrity Technology Transfer (MITT) programme is a component of the Tees Valley Centre for Materials Integrity Programme, which is part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020) and Tees Valley Combined Authority.