Evaluation of the Feasibility of the Use of Bamboo as Potential Reinforcement in Concrete Beams

This study presents the evaluation of the feasibility of using bamboo as a potential reinforcement in concrete beams. To achieve this, absorption test, tensile tests on the bamboo; compressive test on concrete cubes were conducted. Three-point bending tests on concrete beams reinforced with bamboo were performed to identify their behaviour compared to steel reinforced concrete members. The result for the absorption test indicated that water absorption of bamboo is quite high. The bamboo absorbed about 25% of water of its saturated weight in just 24 hrs and increased number of nodes brought about increased absorption of water. It also showed that the bamboo from the top part of the culm absorbed more water than those from the bottom of the culm, with an increase of about 9%. For the tensile tests all the bamboo specimens showed brittle failure at node, making the node the most critical section for failure under tensile stresses, which was also verified in the beam tests. The yield stress was 56.80 N/mm2. In general, the test results indicated that bamboo reinforcement enhanced the load carrying capacity by approximately 200%.