In the narrower sense, the term wood-based materials refers to plywood, chipboard, fibreboard and oriented strand board (OSB). More broadly, glued laminated timber, wood-polymer composites (WPC) and structural materials referred to as "engineered wood products" also belong to the wood-based materials family.
The raw materials for wood-based materials are boards, veneers, chips and fibres obtained from wood. These are usually glued together to form a composite material using an organic adhesive. Under pressure and high temperatures, plate-shaped materials with high stability and distortion resistance are usually produced. In addition, there are also chipboard and fibre materials that are bonded with the mineral binders gypsum, magnesite or cement. This brochure is limited to the three predominant wood-based materials: chipboard, fibreboard and OSB. [...] Wood-based materials enable large-scale applications. They have a homogeneous property profile and are usually much more dimensionally stable than natural wood. In this way, they significantly expand the range of applications of wood products. They can be processed and processed in a variety of ways with simple tools. Even the layman recognises these materials as creations of the natural raw material wood and accepts the materials in a wide range of applications. The manufacturing principle of wood-based materials is technically similar. Wood is broken down into chips or fibres, dried and provided with a binder. The glued chips, strands* or fibres are scattered into nonwovens, compacted and then pressed into panels under the influence of heat and pressure. After the panels have cooled down, they are trimmed, sanded and cut to size. They can then be coated or otherwise processed and processed.
* Anglo-American term for large-area chips
Image: Overview of the variety of wood-based panel types, Informationsdienst-Holz
