Retraction Note: On the seismic performance of bamboo structure

Abstract

While the earthquake resistant building design and construction code has been developed in sophisticated national/city level, the implementation at the local level has been more of an exception than the rule. Other than concrete and steel, one such material that can be used in construction in the seismic zone area of the developing countries like India, especially in the northeast states, is bamboo, where bamboo is available in abundant. Bamboo’s light weight and relative flexibility make it a particularly attractive alternative for residential construction in seismic regions. Compared on a mass-per-volume basis to concrete, steel and wood, bamboo is second to concrete for strength, and ranks first for stiffness. As strong as mild steel with the compression strength of concrete, amazingly, one inch of bamboo can hold up to 7 1/2 tons of weight. This present study is an attempt to implement bamboo construction in Manipur which is regarded as one of the most seismically active regions worldwide. In this work, a bamboo housing system and a reinforced concrete frame structural system was modeled using finite element analysis program SAP, considering the model structures to be taken from the types of building that is built in Manipur. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the seismic performance of the structures and El-Centro Earthquake and Kobe Earthquake recorded excitation are used for input in the dynamic analysis on the models. The study has revealed that the bamboo structures are performing better in earthquake than the commonly built RC residential building. The behavior of the bamboo structure modeled in this present study gives an opportunity to accept bamboo as a construction material in seismic zone areas.