Flexural strength of laminated bamboo beams

Abstract

The need to discover new and sustainable building materials has necessitated research in different parts of the world. This study presents a comparative performance of bamboo laminated beams with cypress beams of the same dimensions. Six laminated bamboo beams and three cypress beams were tested in this study. The dimensions of each specimen was 45mm x 95mm x 600mm and tested under two point loading. Experimental results revealed that bamboo laminated beams resisted higher load than cypress beams and had a higher flexural strength of 39kN/mm2 against that of cypress beam of 34kN/mm2. Also, while cypress beams failed in flexure with major cracks, bamboo laminated beams however failed in tension on the lower part of the beams and shear along the grains. In addition, it was observed that bamboo laminated beams took longer duration than cypress beam to fail completely. The study hereby concluded that bamboo laminated beams showed better load carrying capacity than cypress beams.