Leonardo da Vinci combined the practical and the beautiful, the mechanical and artistic. At the 2013 da Vinci Days festival in Corvallis, Oregon State University scientists, engineers and mathematicians shared their journeys under Antarctic sea ice, to an African village, to Mars and through a mathematical landscape.
Fred Kamke, professor in the OSU Department of Wood Science and Engineering, has now improved the process, achieving strength increases up to 400 percent, taking less time and using less mechanical force. He has applied for a patent on the technique, known as viscoelastic thermal compression, or VTC. The strength and stiffness of VTC wood is better than the best available Douglas fir.