Natural, treated, and 3D-printed wood for sustainable mobility applications
摘要
The use of wood in mobility applications is attracting growing interest due to its environmental benefits, light weight, and good specific strength. This review presents the current state of research on wood and its derivatives—natural wood, treated wood, technical plywood, sandwich composites, and 3D-printed wood-based materials—examining their mechanical behavior, durability, and potential for integration into mobile structures. The work reviewed shows significant advances for plywood and wood-composite sandwiches, but studies on solid wood, dynamics, cracking, and fatigue remain limited and scattered. The main obstacles concern the natural variability of the material, industrial reproducibility, hygro-mechanical modeling, and the lack of test protocols adapted to real-world mobility conditions. The analysis also emphasizes that the favorable mechanical properties of densified or treated wood should not overshadow environmental sustainability requirements. Future research should focus on conducting more tests under variable environments, in vacuum conditions, and at high strain rates, as well as on characterizing interfaces and mixed-mode cracking behavior. Particular attention should be paid to wood-based sandwich structures, which have been identified as particularly promising solutions. Finally, the development of a reference guide listing the mechanical and environmental properties of different wood species and forms would be a key step toward the design and standardization of wood materials for sustainable mobility.