Abstract

The paper presents the structural and environmentally sustainable aspects of bamboo as a reinforcing material instead of steel reinforcement in concrete columns. Seven small-scale short columns (125 mm × 125 mm × 600 mm) with different type of reinforcements were tested under concentric loading to investigate strength capacity and ductility. The results showed that the strength capacity of short columns reinforced by bamboo without surface treatment could resist the axial load as structurally required by ACI318-05, but ductility was rather low especially the column that was reinforced by 1.6 percent of reinforcing bamboo which showed brittle behavior similar to that of plain concrete column. This was thought to be an effect of water absorption and a loss of bonding strength between concrete and bamboo. On the other hand, columns reinforced by bamboo treated with water-repellent substance, Sikadur-31CFN, showed higher strength and ductility than columns reinforced by untreated bamboo. The result also showed that 1.6% of steel reinforcement, in relation to the column crosssection, could be replaced by 3.2% of treated reinforcing bamboo, for similar behavior, strength and ductility.