Materials8 min read

Cork material: an industrial reader's guide

What cork is, how it is harvested, and which industrial properties matter most.

DS

Dimas & Silva Editorial

Portuguese cork · since 1987

Cork is the bark of Quercus suber, the cork oak. It regenerates on a nine-year cycle without harming the tree, making it one of the only structural raw materials that can be harvested from a living organism without depletion.

Industrially, cork is characterised by a density between 120 and 240 kg/m³, a thermal conductivity around 0.040 W/(m·K), a coefficient of friction that remains stable across humidity ranges, and a recovery from compression that exceeds 85 percent after a single load cycle.

These properties are why cork appears in aerospace ablative shields, wine closures, flooring, gaskets, fitness mats, and acoustic panels — often in the same week, on the same production line.

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