ABSTRACT
For every person on the planet, three tons of concrete are utilized annually, making it the most consumed material. Concrete is utilized in construction twice as much as all other building materials combined. Although its tensile strength is poor, concrete's compressive strength is outstanding. Steel has a high tensile strength, which makes it a common material for reinforcement. Because steel is expensive and produces air pollution during production, its use as reinforcing material is restricted.
An investigation on the usage of bamboo as reinforcement is presented in this project work. Whole 12 mm concrete culms implanted in concrete cuboids are tested to failure under flexural loads, although I2 mm diameter steel-reinforced and plain concrete beams are not. A 500 x 100 x 100 mm rectangular mold was used for the test specimen, and it was cured in water for seven, fourteen, and twenty-eight days.
The flexural strengths of 12mm diameter steel, 12mm diameter bamboo, and plain concrete were 7.93N/mm, 6.57N/mm, and 1.99N/mm, respectively, after a seven-day curing period. The flexural strengths of plain concrete, 12mm diameter steel, and 12mm diameter bamboo were 2.72N/mm, 9.95N/mm, and 12.88N/mm, respectively, after a fourteen-day curing period.
The flexural strengths of 12mm diameter steel, 12mm diameter bamboo, and plain concrete were found to be 22.27N/mm, 19.97N/mm, and 3.52N/mm, respectively, after a twenty-eight-day curing period. Bamboo can be utilized to reinforce concrete because, throughout the curing phase, the two bamboo specimens employed in this research had a flexural strength that was significantly higher than that of a plain concrete beam but lower than that of a steel-reinforced member.
