Tropical wood · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Casuarina wood
Casuarina (Casuarina spp., family Casuarinaceae) is a tropical timber from Southeast Asia and Oceania. Dry, its Janka hardness is 3,200 lbf (14,234 N), and air-dry it weighs about 64 lb/ft³ (1,025 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 585–586.
Other names, by country: She-Oak (Australia), Aru (Sabah), Ru (Malaya), Surra, Serva (India), Agoho (Philippines), Velau (Fiji Islands), Tjemara (Indonesia), Bois de fer de rivière (New Caledonia).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 3,200 lbf (14,234 N)
- Green: 1,980 lbf (8,807 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,980 lb for green material and 3,200 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 64 lb/ft³ (1,025 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.83 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.83; air-dry density 64 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 11.7% tangential
- Radial 6.4%, volumetric 17.6%
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 3 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 | 14,300 psi (99 MPa) | 1.89 million psi (13 GPa) | 6,600 psi (46 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 25,000 psi (172 MPa) | 3.31 million psi (22.8 GPa) | 11,000 psi (76 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 21,400 psi (148 MPa) | 1.83 million psi (12.6 GPa) | 12,100 psi (83 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood light red to reddish-brown, becoming darker in older trees; sapwood buff-colored, usually distinct from heartwood. Texture fine, grain straight to interlocked; luster is low; without distinctive odor or taste. Species with wide rays have an attractive figure when quartered.
- Working properties
- Saws with difficulty and also difficult to work with hand and machine tools because of the high density, finishes smoothly.
- Durability
- Heartwood is generally reported as nondurable. In Puerto Rico the wood is rated as susceptible to drywood termites but in the Philippines, it is rated as resistant.
- Uses
- Construction under cover, tool handles, posts and poles (treated), charcoal, tests in India indicate the wood is suitable for chemical and semichemical pulps.
- Where it grows
- Malay Peninsula, Burma, Australia, Philippines, and islands of the Pacific. Widely cultivated throughout the tropics. C. equisetifolia particularly favored along seashores.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 585–586, 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 casuarina against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.