Project

Wood wool

Project at a glance

The Institute for Building in the Alpine Region (IBAR) is concerned with reducing the amount of plastic entering the environment. A central approach is to replace conventional plastic or imported products with a renewable, indigenous and biodegradable building material: Wood wool made from Swiss wood.

Wood wool is a versatile product that can be used as packaging material or to clean udders. Since 2015, we have been working with the production company Lindner Suisse GmbH to establish this product as a building material in the civil engineering sector. To this end, we have so far completed various projects that address the different properties of wood wool. All our wood wool projects are described in more detail below.

Phases of the project

Sustainable erosion protection with wood wool

When a new embankment is created, it should be grassed over as quickly as possible to prevent erosion. This project investigated how well wood wool fleece works as a greening carpet pad and what potential autochthonous seeds offer compared to conventional seed mixtures.

Wood wool fascines for sustainable slope and bank protection

Wood wool fascines can be used to stabilize embankments and banks in a natural way. In this project, they were compared with traditional deadwood machines and the success of revegetation was measured.

Snowfarming with "Howolis"

Snowfarming conserves snow for the early start of winter. Instead of sawdust, this project tested the use of wood wool and glacier fleece as covering materials for the snow pile.

Reinforced earth with wood wool

Reinforced earth is an artificially created slope that is reinforced with stabilizing inserts such as geogrids for greater stability. This project is investigating how the plastics used can be replaced by natural materials.

Head of institute

Prof. Dr. Imad Lifa

Phone: +41 81 286 24 83

Research project leader

Dr. Seraina Braun-Badertscher

Phone: +41 81 286 37 84

Further information

Alpine Infrastructure Constructions

We deal with local building materials, torrents, lake ice, rockfalls and avalanches, i.e. with infrastructure constructions that serve to ensure the standard of living in Alpine regions and/or reduce the risk of an existing/threatening natural hazard through the use of technical protective measures.

Institute for Construction in Alpine Regions (IBAR)

The Institute for Construction in Alpine Regions (IBAR) focuses on issues relating to Alpine living environments. The wide range of cultural and historic building structures and the extreme natural conditions – for example with respect to climate and natural hazards – mean our team is constantly faced with the challenge of developing new building methods and solutions.