SBIR-STTR Award

The US has over 700 million acres of private and public forests, a large percentage of which are critically under-managed. Lumber and pulp prices are depressed and the long-term decline of the housing and paper industries has further exacerbated this overstocking problem. The forest products industry needs to diversify into new markets. Small-diameter timber could serve as a new opportunity if emerging markets can be developed. WholeTrees has devoted itself to creating just such emerging forest products markets. Its business development has been focused on growing the concept of WholeTrees construction from a custom design niche to a potentially viable and scalable construction material. WholeTrees is pioneering the engineering and manufacturing of these products, and expanding into commercial, institutional, and industrial applications. Ongoing research in conjunction with the Forest Products Laboratory is testing the structural capacity of branching timbers and of round wood column and truss frameworks. The company aims to bridge the disconnect between the Forestry and Construction Industries, allowing the abundant resource of small diameter round timber to supply the needs of the building sector. To create a market for round and branching timbers there must be a mechanism for establishing their structural design load values. Criteria for grading of round timber will be based on different properties than those for conventional dimensional lumber because it is a geometry-controlled rather than a property-controlled material. As established by previous and ongoing WT testing, the critical factors to round timber load capacity are diameter and branch geometry. The desired outcome from a grading practice is to determine the design value of a timber for use in construction. Unlike milled timber, which is manufactured at a certain dimension and has established load capacities for certain quality grades, round timber has load capacity based on its branch diameter and branch geometry. The earlier in the process of selection WT can accomplish this, the more cost effective the process since felling, landing and transport of branch timbers requires an added investment of time and labor. 2013 Phase I research results will allow WT to speed production and lower price points, relative to competitive steel structural systems. The software developed with assistance from 2013-2016 Phase I & II funding will digitally analyze this material for use in commercial construction, and grow into a license-able product to the forest products industry. This SBIR proposal directly addresses the USDA Program Priority of supporting Agriculturally Related Manufacturing Technology and the NIFA Societal Challenge Area of Climate Change. These supply chain tools and techniques will become available for purchase by industry, creating a market for small-diameter round timber, and a market for forest landowners from what had previously been considered a near waste by-product of forest management. This will create increased economic opportunity for rural communities while protecting American forest resources.

USDA secretary, Tom Vilsack, has urged the Forest Service to "develop new markets" for forest by-products, which encourage healthy timber management. WholeTrees ® Structures (WT) is launching a manufacturing system that sources small diameter round timber from timber management cullings, tops, diseased and invasive trees, and urban forests. Whole Trees, a woman-owned company, markets these innovative round timber structural products as greener alternatives to steel and concrete in non-residential construction. This Phase II grant builds on WT’s previous SBIR efforts, in partnership with the USDA Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), at digitally mining the superior structural intelligence of trees. It is leading the development of the supply-chain, manufacturing and marketing of non-uniform round timbers. WT is applying new digital technologies to locate, scan and screen trees in forests, then inventory, engineer, and precisely manufacture them into structural assemblies. These tool and techniques will flow-through into marketing WT products in cloud-based Building Information Modeling (BIM) inventories for specification by building professionals. US forests, indeed world forests, have fewer large straight trees and increasing numbers of non-uniform small trees. Taken together, the tools and techniques WT is developing will catalyze restorative forestry businesses and innovative products in new green building markets.