| dc.description.abstract | Coconut wood or Cocowood has a
long history of being utilized as a building
material in Sri Lanka. Cocowood stem has three
major parts from the inner core to outer skin
such as; low-density wood, medium density
wood and high-density wood based on the
moisture content and the fibre bundle patterns.
Cocowood is mainly used for roof construction
and the utilizations are limited for certain lengths
where timber logs less than 4’-0” in length are
mostly abandoned in factory processes in Sri
Lanka. The high-density stem fibre has
properties similar to many hardwood timbers
which are majorly used for luxury flooring
products while the rest of the stems are underutilized
or used as firewood. Even though the
utilization of Cocowood for flooring is practised
in the international context, it has not been
properly adopted in the local context. The
objective of this research is to produce an
affordable engineering flooring material that
minimizes the material wastage of Cocowood by
utilizing the medium density Cocowood stem and
abandoned short length hard-density Cocowood
logs. The research process identified the efficient
use of Cocowood and the practical dimensions for
an affordable Cocowood flooring material.
Experiments resulted in 0’-6”x 0’-48” sized, ¾”
thick, glue-lamed, aesthetically pleasing,
engineered Cocowood tile that can be utilized as
an alternative economic flooring material. The
introduced tile is economical compared to the
other timber flooring materials available in the
current market. | en_US |
