Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Batai wood
Batai (Albizia falcataria, family Leguminosae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 450 lbf (2,002 N), and air-dry it weighs about 24 lb/ft³ (384 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 549–550.
Other names, by country: Puah (Brunei), Moluccan sau (Philippines).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 450 lbf (2,002 N)
- Green: 360 lbf (1,601 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 360 lb for green material and 450 lb at 12% moisture content.”
- Air-dry density
- 24 lb/ft³ (384 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.32 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.32; air-dry density 24 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 6.2% tangential
- Radial 3.2%, volumetric 9.5%
One source: USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Tropical Timbers of the World (Chudnoff, 1979 edition), the only published source read for this wood
Strength
Bending strength is the modulus of rupture (MOR); stiffness is the modulus of elasticity (MOE); crushing strength is compression parallel to the grain. The sheet collects these from published tests: it prints 2 data sets, from different tests and sources, so they can differ widely; all are shown, in the sheet's order, each at the moisture content printed beside it, never restated as 12%.
| Moisture | Bending strength (MOR) | Stiffness (MOE) | Crushing strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green | 5,300 psi (37 MPa) | 1.08 million psi (7.4 GPa) | 2,610 psi (18 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 8,400 psi (58 MPa) | 1.28 million psi (8.8 GPa) | 4,490 psi (31 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood light brown with a slight pinkish or yellowish tinge; not clearly demarcated from the sapwood. Texture rather coarse; grain usually deeply interlocked; sometimes lustrous; dried material without distinctive odor or taste.
- Working properties
- Reported to dull cutters rather quickly; fuzzy grain is rather common because of tension wood. Saws well but growth stresses often cause pinching of the blade. Sharp tools are required to cut this softwood cleanly. Dust from machining may be irritating.
- Durability
- The wood is not durable and is vulnerable to attack by termites and powder-post beetles. Lumber stains rather rapidly.
- Uses
- Veneer core stock, pallets and crating, furniture components, pulp and paper, fiberboard and particleboard.
- Where it grows
- Native to the Molucca Islands of Indonesia and introduced throughout the tropics. A favored species for plantations in the Philippines and Malaysia.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 549–550, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for furniture with the species picker
Weigh batai against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.