OSB as substrate for engineered wood flooring

Oriented strand board (OSB) is a commodity product subject to market fluctuation. Development of a specialty OSB could lead to a better, and more stable, market segment for OSB. It was demonstrated in a previous study (Barbuta et al. in Eur. J. Wood Prod. 2010), that OSB may be designed to obtain a high bending modulus of elasticity in the parallel direction, close to Baltic Birch Plywood (BBP) in its strongest direction. This study focused on the use of such specialty OSB in the manufacturing of engineered wood flooring (EWF) prototypes, a product that widely uses BBP as substrate in Canada. The performance of these two prototypes (aspen/birch and ponderosa pine) was studied. Five types of substrates: BBP, sheathing OSB, web stock OSB and the two specialty OSB prototypes were used to manufacture EWF. A 3-mm thick sugar maple plank was selected as the surface layer for all constructions. A polyvinyl acetate (PVA) type I adhesive was used to bond the components. The tests in conditioning rooms showed that BBP substrate constructions present the lowest distortion between humid and dry conditions as well as aspen/birch specialty OSB, according to ANOVA. The construction with OSB sheathing, OSB web stock and ponderosa pine OSB substrates showed higher distortion. The PVA type I adhesive led to weak bonding with high-density OSB surface. The results of this study demonstrate the potential of OSB panels to be used as substrate for EWF.