UROP Proceedings 2021-22

School of Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 85 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Experimental Testing and Material Characterization of Bamboo Structural Members Supervisor: DIMITRAKOPOULOS Ilias / CIVL Student: TING Chung Lam / CIVL YAN Tak Po Jonathan / CIVL YIM Kwan To / CIEV Course: UROP1100, Fall UROP1100, Fall UROP1100, Fall Bamboo is a sustainable and green building material. It is environmentally friendly as its production process and growth produces little greenhouse gases. Its quick-growing behaviour, compared to other plant-based materials like wood, provides high sustainability. In view of convenience, bamboo is abundant and easy growing, requiring less transportation of building materials, time and money costs. However, there are concerns about bamboo’s strength and consistency, making usage of bamboo as a material for permanent structure rare. The project aims to develop a calculation of shear and tensile strength of bamboo based on its physical properties, like diameter, thickness and moisture content. This project focuses on two different specimens: Bomnhusa blumeana, and Dendrocalamus, asper, and perform shear test, tension test, and split-pin test to obtain data for evaluation. The data are used to determine the relationship between different physical characteristics of bamboo and its strength. The shear, tensile strength and split-pin tests are done according to the ISO22157-2019(E) standard. Orientations of bamboos, top, middle and bottom parts, are marked, as well as other properties, thickness and diameter. Diameters are taken along 2 perpendicular directions and the length of specimens is measured at 4 spots. The average values are used in calculation so that human errors can be eliminated. To conclude, the results in the report shows that bamboo is a brittle material and has low resistance to bending moment. It is too unsafe to use bamboo as a permanent building material at this stage. More research is needed before putting bamboo in use for construction.

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk5Njg=