Non-destructive and Flexural Testing of Multilayer Bamboo Hollow-Core Reinforced Composite Bridges

Abstract

Bamboo is an orthotropic material with high strength along and low strength transversal to its fibers. In the construction field, Bamboo is an environmentally friendly material and has been widely used as a construction material due to its excellent mechanical behavior. Fast growing and renewal capabilities characteristics have also been studied. Based on that, the application of a composite slabs system between concrete and multilayer bamboo which is arranged in a cross-section, without steel reinforcement on a short span bridge is the topic in this paper. This composite system using hollow-core system due to the presence of whole bamboo, therefore this model is named Mulbamcomphol (multilayer cross-ply bamboo composite hollow-core). Full-scale flexural behavior will be examined in non-destructive tests under the actual load of trucks with rocks, sand, gravel and agricultural products. The analysis uses FEM (thick shell and solid element) based programs, due to exact the results are difficult to obtain and tend to be far from the results of flexural testing in the laboratory. Bamboo slabs on a weak axis restrain a smaller load than conventional slabs, but it has deflection that is 81% smaller than conventional slabs at the equal load of 21 kN. Meanwhile, if tested on a strong axis, bamboo slabs restrain 52% greater load and produce 73% less deflection than conventional slabs. In the other hand Bridges with cross-arranged bamboo composite concrete slab systems called Mulbamcomphol have a good performance in resisting flexural loads in terms of ductility and maximum load that can be carried both visually and in analysis and experimental testing