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Synopsis
How much force does it take to drive a nail through different types of wood?
In this project we built a simple test apparatus to swing a hammer reproducibly so we can find out. The goal of this project is to measure how much force is needed to hammer nails into different kinds of wood.
It takes a lot of energy to drive a nail into a solid piece of wood.
The hammer drives the nail through the structure of the wood. As the nail drives through, it pushes aside the cellulose fibers of the wood, which are held strongly together by lignin. As a result, the nail is held firmly in the wood. In order to pull the nail out, you need to overcome frictional forces between the wood and the nail along its entire length.
Wood from different types of trees has different properties. Maple wood, for example, is very hard. In fact, it is easy to bend nails when trying to hammer them into maple. Pine lumber, on the other hand, is soft enough that we can mark it with our fingernails
In this project we built a simple test apparatus that can reproducibly swing a hammer. How many strokes will it take to drive a nail through different types of wood?
With proper testing and data compilation from this project we draw the results that can aid in future workshop practices. This Apparatus can be used later at laboratories and workshops by students and novices in carpentry to determine the type of wood by simply testing it on the apparatus and determining the number of strokes it takes in driving a nail into the wood.
I. INTRODUCTION
The Objective of our project is to identify a wood specimen by driving a nail with the help of a hammer which is swung reproducibly on the test apparatus to hit the nail and drive it deeper into the specimen with every stroke. The test apparatus was built as shown below and wood specimens were collected to be tested on the apparatus. The apparatus allows the strikes of the hammer to be controlled and thus allowing consistent blows of hammer to be achieved with each specimen.
By observing the depth of penetration of the nails which is given by a constant number of strokes, resistance offered by the wood is obtained practically. The hammer drives the nail through the structure of the wood. Theoretically, as the nail drives through, it pushes aside the cellulose fibers of the wood, which are held strongly together by lignin. Thus these factors of the resisting force of the wood to nail penetration are studied comprehensively.
Wood from different types of trees has different properties. Maple wood, for example, is very hard. In fact, it is easy to bend nails when trying to pound them into maple. Pine lumber, on the other hand, is soft enough that you can mark it with your fingernails. Thus by this test, we wish to achieve and obtain data of the depth of penetration of the nail, consequently finding out the resistance offered by particular types of wood and thus helping in identifying the wood by the ranges of the Resisting forces offered.