A Study on Bamboo as a Replacement of Aggregates in Self Compacting Concrete

Abstract

It is a fact that the construction industry is the main consumer of energy and materials in most countries Traditionally steel is used as reinforcement in concrete structure. But because of cost and availability, replacement of steel with some other suitable materials as reinforcement is now a major concern. Though bamboo has been used as a construction material, especially in developing country, until today its use as reinforcement in concrete structure is very limited due to various uncertainties. Since bamboo is a natural, cheap and also readily available material, it can be a substitute of steel in reinforcing of concrete structure. The indiscriminate infrastructural growth is leading to rapid environmental degradation. Steel, cement, synthetic polymers and metal alloys used for construction activities are energy intensive as well as cause environmental pollution during their entire life cycle. In order to quantify the energy and CO2 savings potential by applying best available technologies like vegetable fibers including bamboo, wastes from industry and mining etc., for engineering applications. In this study work an attempt has been made for finding bamboo as reinforcement in concrete by determining the various physical and mechanical properties of bamboo. The investigations conducted for the tested types of bamboo are evaluated using the same accepted criteria as that of steel and aggregate. Keywords— Bamboo, Compressive strength, Flexural strength.