Bamboo as Green Alternative to Steel for Reinforced Concrete Elements of a Low Cost Residential Building

Abstract

Concrete has found to have excellent compressive strength but poor in tensile strength, to take care of the tensile stresses steel is commonly used as reinforcing material in concrete. Production of steel is a very costly business and its use in concrete as reinforcing material increases the cost of construction by many folds. Also production of steel emits a large amount of greenhouse gases causing considerable deterioration of the environment. It is here that engineered bamboo can be of great value to Civil Engineers owning to its several net worthy features. Production of every tone of bamboo consumes about a tone of atmospheric CO2 in addition to releasing fresh O2. From structural point of view bamboo has been used as a structural material from the earlier times as it possesses excellent flexure and tensile strength as well as high strength to weight ratio. The study focuses on investigating the various physical and mechanical properties of bamboo by conducting a variety of laboratory tests to, check the feasibility and reliability of using bamboo as a reinforcing material in concrete structural elements of a low cost dwelling, in addition to select and prepare the most appropriate kind of bamboo specimen to be used in concrete element as reinforcement.