Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Maybe limitations wrt the shapes it can easily take on? One of steel’s advantages in vehicles is its plasticity. Whereas construction mostly just requires materials that are flat and straight.


Out of three material manipulation techniques: Cutting, Joining & Forming, it would fall short on 'Forming'.


Yup, and there are also limitations on joining. Steel and wood are joined in very different ways with different physical properties of their joints and different spatial profiles for joints as well. You can’t weld wood.


Maybe not - if you steam wood you can bend it lots. The compression part might then be doable with rollers, loosely like forcing extruded steel.


To some degree. But you’re probably not going to get strength out of sharp bends. And does steaming interfere with this treatment?

I’m assuming there’s a reason this story includes a quote at the end that’s specifically about I-beams.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: