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Biomaterials Design Lab
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The lab uses science to measure both the visual and tactile comfort of wood and its strength.
AboutAbout the lab
Capturing the comfort and strength of wood in numbers.
The Biomaterials Design Lab studies the appearance and comfort of wood, as well as its properties such as strength.
Wood is a rare material: besides regulating humidity and resisting heat transfer, it gives people who live with it a sense of comfort through its warm color and feel.
The lab captures wood grain, color, and gloss in numbers, and investigates how these affect people's impressions and bodily reactions.
Undergraduate students join the lab in their fourth year (graduate school: Division of Forest Science, Graduate School of Agriculture).
Key terms
- Fracture mechanics
- The field that studies, from the standpoint of force, how cracks form and spread in a material until it breaks
- Fast-growing trees
- Trees that grow quickly and reach a size usable as timber in a short number of years
- Growth stress
- Force that arises inside a trunk as a tree grows. It causes cracking and warping when the wood is cut
NewsLab news
A student won the Student Excellent Oral Presentation Award at the Annual Meeting of the Japan Wood Research Society
A student won the Excellent Oral Presentation Award at the Annual Meeting of the Japan Association for Wood Processing Technology
A student won the Best Award at the student presentation meeting of the Kansai Branch of the Japan Society of Interior Studies
A student won an Excellence Award at the student presentation meeting of the Kansai Branch of the Japan Society of Interior Studies
A student won an Excellence Award at the student presentation meeting of the Kansai Branch of the Japan Society of Interior Studies
ResearchResearch themes
The lab focuses on the properties of wood related to its appearance and human sensibility, and on physical properties such as the strength of wood. It also studies how wood changes over many years.
*Illustrative imageThe appearance of wood and human comfort
The lab captures in numbers the appearance specific to wood, such as grain, color, and gloss, and examines how it changes with finishes such as coatings and how it affects people's impressions. It also studies how wood used in interiors affects people's impressions and bodily reactions.
*Illustrative imageBreaking wood to study its strength
The lab works on evaluating the strength of wood using fracture mechanics, the effects of artificial drying on wood, evaluating the physical properties of fast-growing trees such as chinaberry with a view to their use, and proposing new methods for evaluating how wood breaks.
*Illustrative imageHow wood changes over many years
The lab studies the aging of wood and growth stress in trees. It is also investigating differences in strength from the surface to the interior of old timber, and heat-induced deterioration using burned old timber from Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
MembersFaculty
Members of the Biomaterials Design Lab are faculty members, international visiting researchers, and master's and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorMasashi Nakamura
- Associate ProfessorMiyuki Matsuo
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Beilstein - Schmidhausen - Hebelstraße - Holzzaun - Augen (1)” Roman Eisele / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- The appearance of wood and human comfort: “Interior of the library at Amantaka luxury Resort & Hotel in Luang Prabang Laos” Basile Morin / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Breaking wood to study its strength: “Wood-house-floor-building-wall-beam-587570-pxhere” https://pxhere.com/es/photo/587570 / CC0 (cropped)
- How wood changes over many years: “Flying buttresses and rebuilt spire base of Notre-Dame de Paris” iMahesh / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (複合材料化学): “Cellulose structure” Vicente Neto / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (生物繊維学): “Cellulose polymer” Vicente Neto / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (森林生化学): “Wood decay fungus” Sindugab / CC0 (cropped)
- Related lab (林産加工学): “Puchberg Gattersäge in Sonnleiten” Steindy 02:51, 19. Aug. 2008 (CEST). / CC BY-SA 2.0 de (cropped)
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