Anisotropic bilinear flexural behavior and failure mechanism of parallel bamboo strand lumber plates

Abstract

To investigate the plate behavior of parallel bamboo strand lumber (PBSL) plates, flexural experiments on four groups of PBSL plates with fiber direction changing from 7.5° to 45° were performed. All of these PBSL plates have progressive failure process, developing from initial matrix tensile fracture, succeeding fiber compression fracture, latter matrix tensile fracture and final punch failure. An orthotropic plate theory combining with composite failure theory was proposed to predict the elastic behavior, the cracking load and the ultimate load. The perdition error is acceptable for the PBSL with strong structural dispersion. It is revealed that the ultimate bearing capacity of the PBSL plate in this research has a slight decreasing trend with the fiber direction changing from 0° to 45° as fiber fracture controls the complete failure. The orthotropy makes the plate crack under relatively small load depending on the tensile strength of the matrix and the cracking load also has a slight decreasing trend with the increase of the fiber angle.