Tropical wood · Africa
Utile wood
Utile (Entandrophragma utile, family Meliaceae) is a tropical timber from Africa. Dry, its Janka hardness is 1,260 lbf (5,605 N), and air-dry it weighs about 41 lb/ft³ (657 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 405–406.
Other names, by country: Efuodwe (Ghana), Sipo (Ivory Coast), Okeong (Nigeria), Assié (Cameroon), Kosi-Kosi (Gabon), Mufumbi (Uganda).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 1,260 lbf (5,605 N)
- Green: 1,080 lbf (4,804 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness 1,080 lb for green material and 1,260 lb for dry.”
- Air-dry density
- 41 lb/ft³ (657 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.53 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) about 0.53; air-dry density 41 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 6.4% tangential
- Radial 4.6%, volumetric 11.0%
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 | 11,400 psi (79 MPa) | 1.39 million psi (9.6 GPa) | 5,540 psi (38 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 15,000 psi (103 MPa) | 1.56 million psi (10.8 GPa) | 8,760 psi (60 MPa) |
| 12% MC | 13,700 psi (94 MPa) | 1.61 million psi (11.1 GPa) | 7,900 psi (54 MPa) |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood fairly uniform redor purple-brown; well demarcated from the light-brown sapwood. Texture medium; grain interlocked and rather irregular, has a less uniform stripe figure than sapele; has a faint cedarlike scent. Timber is corrosive to metals.
- Working properties
- Works fairly easily with hand and machine tools, interlocked grain may cause tearing in planing and shaping, finishes well, glues and nails easily.
- Durability
- Heartwood is moderately resistant to attack by decay fungi and termites. Sapwood is liable to attack by powder-post beetle.
- Uses
- Furniture and cabinetwork, joinery, decorative veneers and plywood, boat construction.
- Where it grows
- Principally from West and Central Africa. Occurs in moist deciduous high forests, dry subtypes, and transitional formations. Rather abundant in the Ivory Coast.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 405–406, 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 utile against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.