Flexural behavior and design methodology for bamboo scrimber-aluminum plate composite beams

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the flexural behavior of twelve bamboo scrimber-aluminum plate composite beam specimens. The research investigates the effects of aluminum plate thickness and shape on specimen failure mode, flexural moment–curvature relations, and flexural capacity. Finite element (FE) analysis is used to benchmark test results. The study also includes parametric studies that explore the impact of various factors such as aluminum yield strength, plate thickness, adhesive shear strength, shear span ratio, and depth to width ratio on the flexural capacity of the specimens. The results indicate that while increasing the yield strength of aluminum plate has little effect on flexural stiffness and capacity, increasing plate thickness significantly improves these characteristics in the service limit state. Additionally, increasing the depth-width ratio and shear span ratio correspondingly improves flexural stiffness and capacity. The shear strength of adhesive has a significant impact on flexural capacity, but only a minor effect on flexural stiffness during the elastic stage. Based on the parametric study, modified calculation formulae are proposed to predict the flexural capacity of composite beams with and without inter-layer slip.