LVL – Laminated Veneer Lumber – is a veneer based product composite of layered wood veneers and adhesive. It belongs to the category of engineered wood called structural composite lumber. It has the best of two worlds: the beauty of natural wood and the higher reliability of a structural element made using the most modern technology.
It is very similar to plywood. The difference between LVL and plywood is the orientation of the veneer layers: LVL is manufactured from veneers all oriented in one direction as shown in the figure below.
LVL is generally produced in 44 mm wide sections and is similar in appearance to plywood, but in plywood the veneers switch direction while stacking and in LVL the veneers all stack in the same direction.
The stacking of these veneers into a complete board, called a billet, produces a single piece of LVL with the same direction of wood grain. In LVL, the direction of the wood grain is always parallel to the length of the billet.
