Evaluation on the Performance of Gigantochloa Scortechinii Reinforced Concrete

Abstract

Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. Bamboo has many species, and it possesses excellent properties to be used as a construction material. As used traditionally since ancient times, bamboo has flexible, lightweight, tough, and low-cost material. This paper presents the experimental works on bamboo as a reinforcement in a concrete beam. A locally bamboo species (Gigantochloa Scortechinii) was chosen due to its high sources and availability in Malaysia. Then, the bamboo reinforced concrete (BRC) beams were produced and tested under flexural to characterize the bamboo performance as a reinforcement. The results were compared with unreinforced (PC), and steel-reinforced concrete (SRC) beams. The experimental result of the load-carrying capacity of the BRC beam has been found to increase up to 98% compared with the PC beam. Thus, these results manifested that bamboo has the potential to be used as a reinforcement in concrete structures.