Author Description

The use of concrete is limited because it has low tensile strength. For this reason, it is reinforced and one of the most popular reinforcement is steel. Steel reinforcement at some point may no longer be available or feasible. In current energy crisis scenario, there exists a need for more economical and readily available substitute reinforcement for concrete. Since production of steel rebar requires huge amount of energy, so the main focus of this research work lies in investigating the use of bamboo as potential reinforcement in concrete beams. Through this book we get the idea whether the strips of bamboo have a potential substitute to steel bars in concrete or not. For carrying out the experiments, different types of tests on bamboo material have conducted to find various properties of the material to be used in the design of bamboo reinforced beams. These properties included water absorption, tensile strength, compressive strength and bond strength. After obtaining all mentioned parameters, the bamboo reinforced concrete beams were designed with same reinforcement ratio but different types of patterns of the bamboo reinforcement strips. A beam for same loading parameters was also designed with steel rebar as its main reinforcement. All these beams after casting were tested to compare their first crack loads, ultimate loads and failure patterns as well as working out whether the bamboo material was displaying comparable resistance to the loads like steel rebar beams. Their load deflection graphs and comparison charts were plotted and all their properties compared and quoted in-terms of their loading failure types, amount of strength improvement among bamboo reinforced beams, their bond stress comparisons and ultimately declaring their suitability or unsuitability as a rebar element in concrete beams.