Datasheets for marine plywood

[TomE]

Where can I find datasheets/properties for marine plywood?

I'm looking for tables with thicknes versus stiffness and strenght etc.

rgds Tom

[Eric Sponberg]

Tom,

You can get design and engineering guidelines from the American Plywood Association at www.apawood.org. They have three documents that are particularly useful:

PS1-95, Construction and Industrial Plywood
Plywood Design Specification
Engineered Wood Construction Guide

The Plywood Design Specification lists mechanical properties tables of different grades of plywood which you can use for engineering and design. Plywood properties vary all over the place simply due to the different species of woods that there are, to the different grades of veneers used in the woods, the kinds of glues, the numbers of layers, the orientations of the grain, etc. It is very difficult to get precise numbers on any particular type or species of wood and plywood. Therefore, the APA has graded the different types of plywood into discrete grades, and come up with mechanical properties and allowable stress loads based on those grades. That's about as good as you can get short of doing your own testing. The grading catagories do cover high-quality marine grade plywoods.

You can download the documents listed above, and many more, from the APA website.

Eric

[Raggi_Thor]

I think also you should do a simple bending test of your plywood and compare the numbers with those from apa.