pines vs. maples

If you cut a 2.5" branch off a maple tree and glued it to the ceiling of your garage, you'd be able to hang a car from the other end ^C1.

Specifically, a 2015 Toyota Corolla.

If you cut the same size branch from a pine ^C2, you wouldn't even be able to hang a Smart ForTwo from it.

Of course this begs the question:
- Why would I want to hang my car from the ceiling with a tree branch?

No idea.

However, in this load case the maple destroys the pine. It's allowable tensile stress is way higher and your Corolla can swing from the ceiling for days. Try it with a pine branch and it ends up in a dented heap on the floor with busted pine branch glued to the bumper.

Thing is though, we're not usually loading trees in straight tension. Trees are usually snapped off by a wind blowing from the side. In a wind load case, the geometry of the tree becomes a big part of the stress equation. In fact, stiffness of a tree increases as a function of its diameter to the fourth power.

This begs a more interesting question:
- Is there any point in a pine tree's life where it's grow-fast-at-all-costs-even-if-tensile-strength-sucks approach actually makes it stronger than its slow-and-steady brother?

I’m going to research this a bit over the next few weeks and I’ll update you with the results. Subject of these will continue to be “pines vs. maples” so watch out for it in your inbox!

Couple requests:

• I don't want this to be a newsletter, I just want them to be emails from a guy who writes to you about interesting stuff sometimes. What does that actually look like to you? Hit me up: tony@goodthinklabs.com
• I want to keep these short and entertaining. If you find them to be neither please let me know. Again: tony@goodthinklabs.com
• One last request, if you've got any questions that you're pretty sure no one else has spent the time to solve shoot 'em my way. One last time: tony@goodthinklabs.com

Til next time.

Tony

P.S. Fine! I'll show my work.

Nerds.

C1: {pi * (2.5"/2)^2 = 4.91 in^2 , tensile strenth = 580 (lb/in^2), tensile strength/area = 2847 lb}

C2:{pi * (2.5"/2)^2 = 4.91 in^2 , tensile strength = 305 (lb/in^2), tensile strength/area = 1497 lb}