Balsa vs. PAI
Balsa belongs to the wood-based materials classification, while PAI belongs to the thermoplastics. There are 13 material properties with values for both materials. Properties with values for just one material (15, in this case) are not shown. Please note that the two materials have significantly dissimilar densities. This means that additional care is required when interpreting the data, because some material properties are based on units of mass, while others are based on units of area or volume.
For each property being compared, the top bar is balsa and the bottom bar is PAI.
Metric UnitsUS Customary Units
Mechanical Properties
| Compressive (Crushing) Strength, MPa | 7.0 | |
| 260 to 300 |
| Elastic (Young's, Tensile) Modulus, GPa | 3.0 | |
| 4.0 to 8.3 |
| Elongation at Break, % | 1.2 | |
| 3.0 to 12 |
| Tensile Strength: Ultimate (UTS), MPa | 14 | |
| 100 to 180 |
Thermal Properties
| Specific Heat Capacity, J/kg-K | 1700 | |
| 910 to 1000 |
| Thermal Conductivity, W/m-K | 0.1 | |
| 0.26 to 0.53 |
| Thermal Expansion, µm/m-K | 6.5 | |
| 15 to 34 |
Otherwise Unclassified Properties
| Density, g/cm3 | 0.13 | |
| 1.4 to 1.6 |
Common Calculations
| Stiffness to Weight: Axial, points | 13 | |
| 1.6 to 3.2 |
| Strength to Weight: Axial, points | 30 | |
| 19 to 34 |
| Strength to Weight: Bending, points | 99 | |
| 33 to 49 |
| Thermal Diffusivity, mm2/s | 0.45 | |
| 0.16 to 0.41 |
| Thermal Shock Resistance, points | 51 | |
| 48 to 110 |