Abstract
Bamboo has been widely used as a load-bearing material in construction; however, there are limited studies on the stability of slender original bamboo columns. Based on the experimental investigation of thirty-nine original bamboo columns, parametric analyses were conducted to investigate the influence of the diameter–thickness ratio, cross-sectional area and slenderness ratio on the axial compression behavior of original bamboo columns. The test results indicate that the failure modes of the columns are substantially affected by the slenderness ratio and diameter–thickness ratio. For columns with the same diameter–thickness ratio, the ultimate bearing capacity was negatively correlated with the slenderness ratio, and the highest reduction rate for the load-bearing capacity caused by the slenderness ratio was 44.39%. Under the same slenderness ratio, when the diameter–thickness ratio increased by 18.75%, the ultimate bearing capacity increased by 82.65%. An excessive slenderness ratio may result in local buckling, leading to underutilization of the material strength when failure occurs and substantially reducing the load capacity of bamboo columns. Local buckling can be mitigated by decreasing the slenderness ratio and increasing the diameter–thickness ratio. According to the test results, the model predicting the compressive bearing capacity of the original bamboo column was proposed considering the slenderness ratio and diameter–thickness ratio, and it was indicated that the proposed model can provide satisfactory predictive results.
Highlights
Bamboo, characterized by a relatively short growth period, is a widespread biomass in nature and can be used as a structural component in current buildings [1,2,3,4]
The slenderness ratio ranged from 30 to 45; compared to the specimen with the section area of 2360 mm2, the ultimate bearing capacity of the specimen with section areas of 2642 mm2 and 3112 mm2 increased by 30.89% and 82.65%, the ultimate hoop strain increased by 137.04% and 139.34%, the ultimate longitudinal strain increased by 201.78% and 344.02%, and the lateral displacement at the mid-height section of the specimen increased by 134.72% and 160.75%, respectively, which means the material strength parallel to the bamboo grain was fully utilized with the increase in the section area and diameter–thickness ratio
When the slenderness ratio is in the range of 30 < λ < 60, the specimens exhibit local bucking, which is typical of elastic–plastic instability failure
Summary
Bamboo, characterized by a relatively short growth period, is a widespread biomass in nature and can be used as a structural component in current buildings [1,2,3,4]. Based on the test results, the compressive bearing capacity equation, which is more accurate than that in existing research [35, 36], of original bamboo columns was presented by considering the slenderness ratio and diameter–thickness ratio.
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