What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction?

Construction Grade Bamboo Species – The list below shows all the known construction grade bamboo species (in alphabetic order), and it includes the maximum length and diameter of each species along with its average wall thickness measured at the lower part of the culm.

  • Wall thickness is species-specific, and certainly correlated with culm length and culm diameter, but often not linear.
  • For instance, basal culm can be solid, lower and mid-culm thick-walled, upper culm thin-walled with small lumen, and culm apex solid.
  • Giant bamboos with thick walls are best for heavy duty construction such as multi-storey houses and bridges whereas smaller diameter bamboos or large bamboos with thinner walls are only suited for light or temporary structures,

For construction purposes, wall thickness, density and fiber strength are the most important properties for greatest structural strength. What is not stated in the list are the mechanical properties of each species. By comparing the mechanical properties of each species we could even order each bamboo by its tensile, compression and bending strength, but as mentioned earlier, test results are often incomplete due to a lack of information about the testing procedures and/or used samples.

What is the strongest type of bamboo?

Guadua bamboo is used in all sorts of building applications and is considered to be the strongest bamboo in the world. In South America it is widely used in construction or engineered laminated panels.

What is bamboo used for in construction?

House made entirely of bamboo Bamboo can be utilized as a building material for scaffolding, bridges, houses and buildings. Bamboo, like wood, is a natural composite material with a high strength-to-weight ratio useful for structures. Bamboo’s strength-to-weight ratio is similar to timber, and its strength is generally similar to a strong softwood or hardwood timber.

What kind of bamboo is used in construction Philippines?

Aug 22 BAYOG – Bambusa spinosa in the Philippines – Bamboo architecture is gaining more interest among young designers and builders in Southeast Asian countries, and many are trying to explore different bamboo species and construction options for their projects.

In the Philippines, an endemic bamboo species called Bayog, ( Bambusa spinosa ) has long been used for construction traditionally. This bamboo species can be found throughout the country, especially near water bodies and it tolerates changes in salinity and seasonal fluctuations in water availability.

It had been called with many scientific names, such as Bambusa blumeana luzonensis and Dendrocalamus merillana, among others. However, across the county is commonly known as Bayog. Bayog has many characteristics similar to the popular Bambusa blumeana (Thorny Bamboo/ Kawayan Tinik). What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Photo of Bayog clump. It is one of the most persistent and predictive in relation to growth and lignification of all the endemic bamboo species in the country, which makes it a highly utilised species. The shooting season of Bayog is intermittent, much like Bambusa vulgaris and is mainly dictated by the water content level of the soil and atmospheric humidity throughout the year. What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Bayog shoot Bayog is also one of the easiest bamboo species to propagate and the survival rate is quite high. After four months in a nursery and when the main planting material has produced a new culm with its own set of leaves and branches, they are ready to be outplanted. What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Bayog is a clumping bamboo with drooping and culms that grow to an average length of 15 meters and doesn’t normally exceed 20 meters. Relative culm basal diameter is about 8 centimeters and the wall thickness is usually a third of its diameter. The nodes are solitary, the nodal lines and nodal ridge are present with aerial roots especially at the lower nodes much like Dendrocalamus asper rather than Bambusa blumeana, What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Cross section of seasoned Bayog. For the local bamboo craftsmen, Bayog is most preferred for structural components of traditional houses because of its thick and strong culm. It is being used basic post & beam construction and also as framing for stairways. What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Bayog in a 50 year old traditional house. In traditional bamboo houses using Bayou as the main structural members, the floors and walls uses the Bambusa blumeana (Kawayang Tinik), because of its smoother and shinier surface. Bayog can also provide very interesting patterns when crafted into balustrades and railings.

The combination of the two species of bamboo for the houses makes it like “Malakas (strong) and Maganda (beautiful), synonymous to the ancestral legends that men and women came out of the bamboo. Bayog is popular for boat makers too, especially to be used as outriggers. Farmers are also using Bayog for arched yoke for their carabaos and ropes to tie farm produce.

Its shoots are edible and among the favorite local delicacy for its spicy flavor. What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Bayog applied in building construction Bayog is an available and affordable species that is local, versatile and workable. How can we as bamboo advocates and proponents improve the use of this resource to our current and future needs? Here are some suggested initiatives:

Bayog has character and strength when crafted well – it brings an opportunity for designers to explore this alternative bamboo for its natural culm beauty, not just for main structure but also for secondary building components like screens, balustrading Its price per pole is generally cheaper than popular or introduced species, and thus can provide a more economical solution to construction on projects. It can be used for areas with high exposure typhoons and its flexibility to be bend can be a good use for designers that would like to do more organic shapes and forms in their design. The availability of Bayog throughout the country makes transportation cost more economical and has less carbon footprint, as compared to sourcing poles that are only thriving on distant islands. Further studies and tests should carried out and shared on the physical and mechanical properties of Bayog.

This article is written by: – Alvin Tejada & Ewe Jin Low with input from Herbie Teodoro. We welcome any information on Bayog from our readers and this article, like many of our other articles, can be updated and improved with your valued contribution.

How strong is bamboo as a building material?

As construction materials, bamboo has a very strong fiber. The compressive strength of bamboo is two times higher than concrete, while the tensile strength is close to steel. Bamboo fiber has a shear stress that is higher than wood. Bamboo has wider span than wood.

Is bamboo as strong as concrete?

Bamboo has higher compressive strength than many mixtures of concrete. Bamboo has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than graphite.

Why is bamboo better than concrete?

As an alternative to overcome this problem, bamboo material has been used as a replacement of reinforcement in concrete. Bamboo is a suitable material because it is a natural material, cheap and also available material.

How do you choose bamboo for construction?

Selection of Bamboo for Concrete Reinforcement – The following factors are considered while selecting bamboo culms for their use as reinforcement in concrete structures:

The bamboo culm or the whole plant selected must have a pronounced brown color. This color shows that the plant is atleast three years old. Always choose the bamboo culm with larger length and diameter. Never use whole culms that are green and unseasoned. Do not cut the bamboo during spring or summer seasons. During this seasons, the culms get weaker due to increased fiber moisture content.

How strong is engineered bamboo?

Materials Innovations: What is Structural Engineered Bamboo (SEB)? What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Cortesia de ReNüTeq Pretentious as it may sound, we can say with certainty that bamboo is one of the most promising materials for the future of the construction industry. Neil Thomas, principal engineer at atelier one, says that if we were to design an ideal building material, it would look a lot like bamboo.

This is because it grows very fast, is present in many countries around the world, has a highly efficient cross-section, and has impressive load-bearing strength. But beyond its structural use in its raw form, bamboo is also a material that allows a high level of processing and can be laminated for flooring, fixtures and, as we will see in this article, for Structural Engineered Bamboo (SEB) structures, which are very similar to Engineered Wood.

We spoke with Luke D. Schuette, founder and CEO of ReNüTeq Solutions, LLC, a company in St. Louis, Missouri, that has been working with this structural material technology. Engineered bamboo is made from raw bamboo culms, which through pressure and heat form a laminated composite that is then glued together to form structural parts.

In Renüteq’s case, the slat preparation process and the finished product are patented specifically for structural building applications, called Radial Laminated Bamboo, RadLam® optimizes the highest performance fiber of the culm by removing the lower strength fibers from the inside of the culm slat before lamination takes place, while increasing the efficiency during production by reducing waste.

The main applications of SEB are structural systems (columns and beams), structural glazing systems for buildings (for entrances, roofs, façade systems), as well as curtain walls and floor-to-ceiling frames. What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Cortesia de ReNüTeq What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Cortesia de ReNüTeq Although the uses are similar, according to Luke, “from a structural standpoint, SEB is much stronger than any Mass Timber on the market. The Modulus of Elasticity of ReNüTeq’s SEB is more than 4 million PSI, which is more than twice the strength of any engineered or glulam timber product.

In tension, it is more than 10 times stronger due to the continuous silica fiber content throughout bamboo. The higher density of SEB is ideal for connection design as timber fiber will crush within bolted connections, whereas this maintains its form under higher compression.” Because it is 40% denser than engineered wood, it also means that bamboo structures have significantly better fire performance than wood, because its carbonization rate is much slower.

” Bamboo, at its cellular level, is more closed than timber fiber which makes it much more stable in moisture and temperature changes. SEB is more than 28% more stable than Mass Timber in volatile conditions, making it optimal for both structural and glass systems.” What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Cortesia de ReNüTeq In addition to its structural uses, bamboo also has advantages regarding its environmental impact. Luke points out that a bamboo plantation produces 37% more oxygen than traditional forests. “Guadua bamboo not only sequesters carbon, but it also produces oxygen as it grows, up to 37% more oxygen than trees.

During the industrial revolution and even today massive quantities of natural tree growth has been removed around the world. Timber construction is considered sustainable when compared to concrete and steel, but it is nowhere near the sustainability case for bamboo, especially when accounting for the already depleted natural forests.” Bamboo has a geometric growth curve that makes it 10x faster than tree-based CO2 removal.

Harvested intensively, it can sequester up to 1.76 tons CO2/group/year, or up to 362 tons/hectare/year on an optimally managed farm. Renüteq’s products are produced with the Guadua species, cultivated in Latin America and certified by ASTM (American Society of Testing Materials). What Kind Of Bamboo Is Used In Construction Cortesia de ReNüTeq In addition, another factor to take into account is the quality of the soil, which is not always mentioned. According to Luke, “Guadua bamboo’s root system stays intact throughout growth and harvest. When timber is harvested the root system dies and causes drastic soil instability, and the consequence is topsoil erosion.

Extreme cases of this have occurred all over the world in places such as India, Asia, Africa, and Central/South America. When old growth and timber farms are removed the quality topsoil is lost and regrowth of any form of vegetation is limited. Replanting trees is not the solution. Let’s cut down fewer trees.” To illustrate this, he recalls a quote from Sahdguru, founder of Conscious Planet in India : “Save the Soil to Save the Environment.

Soil degradation is the most pressing ecological challenge of our time. Agriculture can only thrive on rich soil – there is simply no other way. Regeneration of soil is invigoration of life.” The only obstacle, says Schuette, still lies in the access to knowledge about solutions and examples of buildings and product designs already completed with this material.

How long does bamboo last as a building material?

A bamboo house can last for a lifetime Bamboo-based house construction is very common in North East India especially in the villages and the Debbarma community of West Tripura District is no exceptions to this. These types of houses are constructed with local and renewable materials and are more sustainable and resilient.

On an average, a normal bamboo house lasts for 10-12 years and then it needs repair or replacement. Jana Unnayan Samiti Tripura (JUST), a FARM Northeast partner of Caritas India with Forest Research Centre for Livelihood Extension (FRCLE), Agartala has trained community people on bamboo treatment through scientific methods for house construction.

The treatment enhances the durability of the bamboo and keeps it stronger for at least 70-80 years that too without any maintenance. The treated bamboo remains free of any pest attacks especially termites. Such houses are also earthquake resilient. The community members were given the opportunity to interact with the experts and get hands-on demonstration for treatment of bamboos.

The people were trained to treat fresh and matured bamboos with chemicals like Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA), Copper chrome Boron (CCB) or Borax- Boric Acid, depending on the species or quality of bamboo.buy amoxil online no prescription Processes like Sap displacement, Boucherie process, Diffusion process, and Empty cell process or Vacuum Pressure Impregnation (VPI) increases the resistance and durability of the bamboo.”We never thought that bamboo could also be made more useful this way”, expressed Mr.buy stromectol online no prescription

Kanta Debbarma, a Farmer’s Club member after coming out of the training. A locally manufactured machine was used to process bamboos with the technical support from FRCLE. This treatment ensures the durability of the bamboo to a much higher period than the usual untreated ones.34 individuals from 3 project villages were trained between September 2017 to December 2018 with hands-on support by FRCLE experts.4 individual members of the community from 2 villages have already started the construction of their houses with treated bamboo.

The treatment machine was acquired by them through FRCLE free of cost. Out of the 4 under construction houses, 2 are completed and it is expected that the rest would be complete by March 2019. JUST plans to take this process forward and reach out to the people of all 15 FARM Northeast villages. JUST is also working on bringing about community action in such activities by motivating people to help each other as a community.

: A bamboo house can last for a lifetime

What kind of bamboo is used for flooring?

Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring A bamboo floor is a type of flooring manufactured from the bamboo plant. The majority of today’s bamboo flooring products originate in China and other portions of Asia, Moso bamboo is the species most commonly used for flooring.

What is the thickest type of bamboo?

The tallest bamboo in the world, Dendrocalamus giganteus (Giant Bamboo) is an impressive evergreen bamboo with huge, upright, incredibly thick, dull green to dark blue-green canes. The culms are extremely robust and thick walled, reaching nearly one foot in diameter (30 cm).

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They are covered with a white waxy crust when young. A fast grower, the new shoots can grow up to 12 in. per day (30 cm). Giant Bamboo flowers approximately once every 40 years. Easy to grow, this clump-forming bamboo makes a gorgeous architectural specimen of breathtaking stature. It is also excellent for construction, furniture, food and crafts.

It can be grown successfully in lowlands on rich loam or alluvial soils, where humidity is high. Hardy to 25ºF (-4ºC).

Grows up to 80-100 ft. tall (24-30 m) and 40-50 ft. wide (12-15 m). A full sun or partial shade lover, it is best grown in fertile, humus-rich, moist but well-drained soils, Remove weak, dead, damaged or spindly stems in spring and thin to show off stems to best effect. Cut out any flowering shoots promptly to discourage more from forming. Propagate by seed or division. Native to Burma, Bhutan, China, Thailand

Not sure which Bamboos to pick? Compare All Bamboos Buy Dendrocalamus giganteus (Giant Bamboo)

Why don’t we use bamboo instead of steel?

Bamboo vs. Steel – Even before discovering bamboo’s tensile strength, it has been utilized extensively in the building industry. In the past, bamboo was utilized in the construction of homes, furniture, and walls. Engineers and researchers in the present day are eager to replace steel with bamboo because of its tensile strength.

Property Bamboo (psi) Steel (psi)
Modulus of Elasticity 2.9 * 10^6 3 * 10^7
Compressive Strength 9000 – 13,500 20,000
Tensile Strength 21,500 – 55,700 23,000
Bending Strength 11,000 – 40,000 20,300
Shear Strength 2900 13,300

Advantages of bamboos:

  1. The natural fiber of bamboo is exceptionally strong.
  2. It has a very strong tensile strength.
  3. Because of its hollow design, it is extremely flexible.
  4. As opposed to steel, it’s a lot lighter.
  5. Eco-friendly and low-cost.
  6. It has a high capability for shock absorption.

Disadvantages of bamboos:

  1. It is not suitable for long-term usage in permanent constructions due to its lower durability than steel.
  2. Shrinkage concerns.
  3. It’s more vulnerable to environmental deterioration and insect invasions.
  4. It cannot be utilized in cold weather conditions.
  5. When compared to steel, it has a shorter lifespan.
  6. Poor adhesion to the concrete mix due to low modulus of elasticity.
  7. The lower modulus of elasticity makes it more prone to cracking and deflection.

There is already a lot of research being done to fix all of these issues and improve the present features of bamboo. These researches examine the plant’s mechanical and physical qualities, as well as its usefulness. In an effort to replace steel, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich is working on a bamboo composite named BambooTECH, which they say has the strength, adaptability, and durability to do so.

What are the disadvantages of bamboo wood?

In Sum – Bamboo is a plentiful resource that presents a variety of advantages:

Versatility Strength A grove quickly regenerates A typical harvest yields 15 times more material than trees located with a comparable area

However, there are several disadvantages:

It requires manufacturing before it is considered solid Since many countries manufacture and export bamboo, there are no standards regarding quality There is the risk of exposure to formaldehyde or other VOCs Similar to wood, bamboo surfaces are soft making it susceptible to scratches

Can bamboo replace steel and concrete?

Bamboo is one of the alternative materials that can replace steel bar in concrete beam due to the low cost, fast growing, environmental friendly and most importantly its strong in tension as stated in 12], the strength of bamboo is greater than many timber products, but it is quite less than the

Can bamboo be load bearing?

Multiscale structural insights of load bearing bamboo: A computational modeling approach, July 2020, 103743 As the fastest growing fibrous plant in nature, bamboo is abundantly available in tropical and subtropical regions of the world (Ray et al., 2004; Yu et al., 2003; Kappel et al., 2004).

Well known for its very high strength/weight ratio up to 3 to 4 times of steel (Tan et al., 2011; Cui et al., 2016; Gutu, 2013), good durability and biodegradability (Liu et al., 2012), bamboo has been unequivocally contributing to sustainable development and economic prosperity, especially in engineering fields including construction and manufacturing.

Regarded as a good natural construction material, bamboo culms of various species have been used in constructing both permanent and temporary structures around the world since ancient times (Jayanetti and Follett, 2008). Common structures fabricated with bamboo include scaffolding for infrastructure construction (Chung and Yu, 2002), buildings, bridges, and bamboo fiber-reinforced composites (Tan et al., 2011).

Some innovative applications of bamboo, such as bicycles and geodesic domes, are invented by making use of its excellent mechanical properties (e.g., high unit-weight strength and stiffness) developed during the long natural selection process over the past millions of years (Ghavami, 2005). For instance, when a bicycle is in use, its structural members experience bending and torsion.

Great functionalities of a bicycle can be achieved by making use of the excellent performances of bamboo under these loading conditions (de Oliveira et al., 2010). A geodesic dome constructed with bamboo could serve as sustainable, cost efficient, light weight and rapid to fabricate structure, thereby enabling it to be a good choice for making shelters in disaster areas (Mahdavinejad et al., 2014; Salcido et al., 2016).

  • Unlike wood, which grows continuously along the radial direction, only longitudinal growth occurs in bamboo.
  • After a young bamboo shoot break through the soil, the thickness of bamboo cross section remains constant and cannot increase with height due to the absence of cambium (Kappel et al., 2004), leading to the necessity of optimizing structural features at multiple length scales to overcome various external loadings from natural habitat.

Regarding the structural features, bamboo is considered as a composite material with graded structures at both mesoscale and macro-scale (de Oliveira et al., 2010; Silva et al., 2006; Amada, 1995). Vascular bundles, also known as bamboo fibers, are scattered in the transverse cross-section (Fig.1a) and their distribution is dense near the outer periphery but sparse near the inner periphery (Ray et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2011).

  • A bamboo stem consists of tubular culms with periodic nodes (Fig.1c), characterized by an external ridge and an internal diaphragm (Kappel et al., 2004; Taylor et al., 2015).
  • In recent years, the multi-scale structural features of bamboo have been intensively explored by means of various advanced imaging techniques (e.g., scanning electron microscopy) (Ismail et al., 2002; Thwe and Liao, 2003).

Still, our understanding of the function of these structural features in the mechanical performance of bamboo under different loading conditions remains quite limited. For instance, little is known about the mechanical function of regularly spaced nodes (Fig.1d), how this specific regular structure is optimized for bamboo’s load bearing capability, as well as the underlying explanation for the segment length.

  • Therefore, attention should be paid to study the linkage between the microscale structure of bamboo and the material’s mechanical property, as well as how such linkage affects the appearing large-scale structure of the entire piece of bamboo.
  • Such knowledge will be useful to develop a high-performance structural design with bamboo to satisfy the various kinds of demands in engineering practice.

Within the structure fabricated with bamboo (e.g., scaffolding used for temporarily support the architecture under construction), two major types of loading that structural components are subjected to are compression and bending. For the members in compression, column buckling is considered to be one of the critical failure modes (Yu et al., 2003), usually leading to the catastrophic collapse of the entire structure (Yu et al., 2005).

Nevertheless, our knowledge about bamboo under compressive loading is quite narrow and most previous studies focus on the large-scale structural design of bamboo by considering bamboo as a homogeneous cylinder (Yu et al., 2003), which indicates lack of detailed information to understand the mechanics of bamboo per se.

In fact, there has been experimental evidence to show that the bamboo node is a point of weakness when loaded in tension due to the lower tensile strength of the material in the node (Wang et al., 2011). Meanwhile, structural features, such as the external ridge and internal diaphragm, strengthen the node (Wang et al., 2011).

It is not clear how the unique geometry of the node and its mechanics may affect the overall mechanics of the bamboo in compressive loading condition, as well as how the fiber-matrix distribution inside bamboo wall can adjust to maximize its mechanics for growing taller. Because of complex factors include species, age, humidity state that can all affect the mechanical response of the bamboo, one can expect that the experimental work of getting a more comprehensive understanding of the buckling behavior of bamboo can be massive.

It would also be necessary to build an efficient model and answer some questions such as how these structural features affect the compressive strength of bamboo and how effective these features are. Bamboo has complex microstructural shapes and gradient material distribution in the cross section.

  • Thus, we adopt finite element analysis (FEA) and develop a bamboo computational model by the representative volume element (RVE) approach in order to achieve a more in-depth and systematic understanding of the relationship between mechanical behavior and structural features.
  • The RVE approach is used for computing the effective material properties of the composite material and significantly reduces the computational cost (de Oliveira et al., 2010; Bai et al., 2007).

This method allows us to theoretically vary the distribution of bamboo fiber and matrix and understand how it affects the overall mechanics. In this research, we aim at investigating how the structural features influence the buckling behavior of bamboo from multiple length scales and explaining the reason for the regular segment length.

Other effects including water content that can affect the overall mechanics of the material are not included in the current model. The current results can help the structural engineers to take into account these features in structural design with bamboo to produce light and strong bamboo structures with the enhanced economy as well as sustainability.

Our findings may also inspire engineers and architects to create a bio-inspired synthetic fiber reinforced composite materials as well as structural columns by mimicking the structural features of bamboo at multiple length scales. We use computational models for finite element analysis taking into account the structural features at multiple length scales.

Materials properties determined from the FEA on representative volume element (RVE), which comprises the smallest portion of the composite that keeps the most representative material composition (Medeiros et al., 2012), are the input for completed bamboo models on which FEA are performed to obtain the critical buckling loads.

This section describes bamboo model In this section, we present the theoretical calculation on fiber distribution and an analysis of the simulation results. The effect of multiscale structural features is interpreted based on the result analysis. The segments on the bamboo culm are periodically separated by nodes.

From a biological point of view, the nodes significantly contribute to the growth of bamboo (Shao et al., 2010; Zu-fu and Yon-fen, 1980). They provide places for branches and leaves, which provide nutrients for the plant through photosynthesis. Moreover, meristems, which trigger the growth of new cells, are located at every node.

In this way, every bamboo segment can grow simultaneously, resulting in the rapid growth rate of Our results suggest that the heterogeneous fiber distribution has a great advantage to amplify the flexural rigidity by 20% compared to the uniform fiber distribution, resulting in the significant enhancement of the buckling resistance of bamboo.

  1. We find that, from the biological perspective, the nodes are perhaps indispensable to provide a place to grow branches and meristems, which are favorable for the rapid growth of bamboo.
  2. Our study of the compressive strength of bamboo suggest that a Junhe Cui: Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Software, Formal analysis, Validation, Resources.

Zhao Qin: Writing – review & editing, Software, Formal analysis, Validation, Supervision. Admir Masic: Methodology, Writing – original draft. Markus J. Buehler: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Funding acquisition, Supervision.

  1. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
  2. We thank John Ochsendorf, Steven Palkovic and Stephen Rudolph (all MIT) for helpful discussion of bamboo modeling and experimental testing.

We acknowledge support by the Office of Naval Research ( N000141612333 ) and the Army Research Office ( W911NF1920098 ).

A. Zhou et al. W. Yu et al. W. Yu et al. U.G. Wegst M.M. Thwe et al. T. Tan et al. J.C. Salcido et al. F. Nogata et al. M. Mahdavinejad et al. T. Kanit et al.

H. Ismail et al. K. Ghavami E.S. Flores et al. K. Chung et al. X. Chen et al. S. Amada et al. S. Amada et al. S. Amada X. Bai et al. J. Cui et al.

Following nature’s design principles, biological entities have evolved to be highly efficient and multifunctional to maximize all the available materials and structures and to survive in harsh environments. Biomaterials and bio-systems can be lightweight yet impact-resistant to withstand external dynamic loadings thanks to the fascinating architectures integrating specialized design concepts (e.g., structural hierarchy, density gradience, and thin-walled tubular/cellular structures). Herein, we provide an organic review on various biological systems with sophisticated architectures perfectly for impact resistance and energy absorption, including beetle, woodpecker, mantis shrimp, nacre, bone and muscle, nutshell and fruit peel, and bamboo. From a perspective of biological functions, a comprehensive understanding of the unique structure–function relations is achieved in superior impact-resistant and energy absorption capabilities. Accordingly, the dynamic behaviors of those bio-inspired structures are also carefully reviewed in terms of the delicate design concepts, underlying mechanisms, and modeling strategies. Results demonstrate that representative bio-inspired structures exhibit beyond 60 J/g for specific energy absorptions, making them serve as excellent impact protection structures for engineering applications. Discoveries, understanding, and collection of brilliant nature-designed structures can further enable possible data-driven methodologies in engineering structural design, and the development of low-cost manufacturing technologies may enable the possible engineering application of efficient bio-inspired structures. Next-generation agriculture must address its high energy-intensive resource utilization footprint such as excessive use of fertilizer and water. Plants are also sources of natural polymers (cellulose, lignin, and pectin) that have important implications in sustainable materials design. Hence healthy plant growth with optimum utilization and production is essential for future growth, which demands new technologies and sensors for on-field precision agriculture. Here we used Raman spectroscopy (RS) to non-invasively monitor soybean development, a plant of immense economic importance for fuel, feed, and food. We focus on its compositional changes at multiple time points as it transitions from the vegetative (or rapid growth) to the reproductive (or flowering) stage subjected to nitrogen and nutrient stress to identify several indicators of health. The longitudinal growth was severely limited under total nutritional stress. Simultaneously, the cell wall showed early lignification to control growth and allow for efficient transport of limited resources. Healthier plants showed activation of early defense mechanisms via tetraterpenes, greater protein production capacity via glutamic acid, and late lignification by week 12. Nitrogen stressed plants also showed stunted growth though they showed a similar defense mechanism and later lignification as the healthy condition. These differences in the concentrations of structural polymers, stress signaling molecules, and structural growth inhibitors at different time points and variable stress demonstrated the suitability of Raman spectroscopy for precision plant health monitoring. Development such as the current study is a step towards creating tools, devices, and computational models for next-generation farming. With excellent mechanical properties and structural form, bamboo has attracted more and more scientists’ attention. Biomimetics is a bridge connecting the advantages of organisms with engineering applications that can improve the performance of both materials and structures. This paper aims to guide the design of bamboo-inspired materials, structural members, or structures using bamboo or other renewable materials, and simultaneously guide some designs of nanomaterials at mesoscale to some extent. The characteristics of bamboo at mesoscale and microscale are introduced firstly. And then materials and structures inspired by bamboo are presented and discussed to promote the bamboo-inspired design in engineering. Some points that need to be further researched are proposed afterward. Relevant researches indicated that some functional properties of materials have been improved and the load-bearing capacity and the energy-absorption ability of most structures have been generally improved. And further researches in this area are discussed to give some references for the upcoming work. Bamboo has attracted considerable recent interest in sustainable buildings as the fastest-growing natural material retaining mechanical properties similar to structural wood while being an effective CO 2 absorber during its growth. Previous efforts to estimate bamboo material properties and their behaviour using homogenisation techniques used simplified assumptions on the geometry of the inhomogeneous microstructure, hence these methods failed to account for the different homogenised material properties in the directions lateral to the bamboo culm. This study presents a novel anatomy-based numerical bamboo microstructure analysis that accurately represents the geometrical features of the material, leading to a transversely anisotropic effective material model. We compare the resulting effective elastic properties to those obtained with state-of-the-art numerical and analytical approaches found in the literature. It is concluded that our anatomy-based representative volume element provides a better understanding of the material microstructure and its corresponding effective stiffness properties in the longitudinal and lateral directions. Bamboo has been widely used in construction for its high strength, lightweight, and low cost. It usually fails from the skin because of macroscopic fiber splitting. Previous research focused on the strength of bamboo at a structural scale without insight into its chemistry and microstructure of the skin and how they relate to its fracture. In this research, we combine multiscale computational modeling with experimental methods to characterize the distribution of silica particles within the bamboo skin and investigate their effect on fracture. We use a microscope to characterize the chemical and microscopic features of bamboo skin and notice silica particles generally distributed in bamboo skin and their pairwise distances follow a normal distribution. We use molecular dynamics simulations and finite element analysis to investigate the effect of silica particles and their unique distribution on the fracture of bamboo skin. It is noted that the silica forms a perfect bonding interface to cellulose fibers and the particles significantly increase the critical stress up to 6.28% than pure cellulose matrix for cracks that randomly occur. We find that such an enhancement in critical stress against random cracks is only guaranteed by the distribution of silica particles in bamboo skin, as such an enhancement is not observed for other randomly assigned silica particles, suggesting that the silica distribution in bamboo skin is optimal for critical stress improvement for random cracks. This research output can inspire the development of more durable and sustainable bamboo products as well as innovative synthetic composite materials. This work describes the experimental and numerical behaviour of sandwich panels made of aluminium skins and bamboo core under low-velocity impact test. A statistical design is carried out to evaluate the effect of the bamboo diameter (Ø20 and Ø30 mm) and the adhesive type (epoxy and biopolymer) on the maximum load, energy to maximum load, total deflection and total energy of the panels, which are assessed through graphical and failure analysis. A non-linear finite element (FE) analysis is developed to simulate the low-velocity impact test and to predict the failure mechanisms of the skins, bamboo core and adhesive. The experimental results show that, unlike the adhesive type, the bamboo diameter variation does not significantly affect the impact properties. Sandwich panels made of epoxy adhesive exhibit greater rigidity and lower maximum load than those with biopolymer, resulting in premature core-face debonding. On the other hand, sandwich panels made with biopolymer have a greater capacity for absorbing energy and maintaining structural integrity. The numerical simulation indicates a good correlation with the experimental data for load–displacement impact curves, kinematic energy-time curves, perforation process and failure modes.

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Spiders, silks and webs are abundant and can be found in most ecosystems: in the corner of houses, on top of bushes, or even spanning rivers. They are the proof of an evolutionary success as they were able to survive and prosper for millions of years despite being subjected to environmental and human threats, such as the displacement of spider web silk attachments or impact of prey, predators, and debris. Their success is in part due to the excellent mechanical properties of silk and webs that originate from their hierarchical structure of silk, ranging from silk protein, to fibers, to spider webs. Here, we investigate the mechanical behavior of highly complex Cyrtophora Citricola 3D spider web, the architecture of which has been digitally modeled with micron-scale details from images of full-scale laboratory experiments, under stretching and projectile impact, using coarse-grain bead-spring simulations. We show that the interplay between the nonlinear behavior of spider silk and the redundancy of complex 3D spider web structures is crucial for the robustness and resilience of spider webs. The tangle region of the spider web allows prey to fly through and be caught in the dense tent web region, providing food to the spider. It also filters out predators at low impact velocity, and consequently protects the spider located in the tent region. Understanding the role of the interplay between silk mechanics and 3D web structure in webs’ evolutionary fitness could lead to high-performance and lightweight fiber network composite for structural, material and biomedical engineering. Recombinant Bamboo is a newly sustainable composite which breaks through the traditional processing mode, and its excellent physical properties can fully replace the wood widely used in furniture manufacturing. In this paper, take the classic back chair for example, in order to research the application of recombinant bamboo material in the furniture, using ANSYS finite element analysis software to compare the stress and deformation of recombinant bamboo, Rosewood and Elm under stress states. Meanwhile, in order to find out which leg shape is most suitable for the back chair of recombinant bamboo, the impact of the current mainstream three legs on the mechanical properties of the back chair is analyzed. Moreover, the parametric design method can work out the optimum size of legs and seat which are the most important design elements of back chair. This provides an evidence-based and effective method for furniture design. Large-scale parallel bamboo strand lumber (PBSL) structural elements are often subjected to local compression especially in beam-to-column connections as well as in beam-to-beam connections. The current paper presents an experimental investigation on the local compression behaviour of PBSL.20 specimens were collected from different parts of a PBSL block under radial and tangential compression loading. Load-displacement curves of all specimens were recorded and observed failure patterns were carefully investigated to understand underlying mechanics. Tangentially loaded specimens predominantly failed due to debonding of fibres triggered by deformations perpendicular to the grain. On the other hand, radially loaded specimens showed a combined failure caused by debonding in perpendicular to the grain direction as well as tensile failure of bamboo fibres in the longitudinal direction. Key design parameters such as elastic modulus, stiffness, ultimate strength and Poisson’s ratio for all specimens were computed and compared against end vs middle specimens as well as radial vs tangential specimens. Radially loaded specimens showed higher load carrying capacity due to better bonding, whilst the specimens collected from the middle part of the PBSL block were relatively more ductile than the others. Analytical models for load–displacement repose as well as for stress–strain behaviour were proposed for the considered specimens. Ramberg-Osgood based stress–strain model showed good agreement with test results. In this study, the intrinsic viscoelastic mechanical behavior of a hierarchical bio-composite, structural bamboo material, was experimentally investigated and correlated with its microstructural constituents and molecular building blocks. The macroscopic viscoelastic responses of bulk bamboo at ambient temperature and dehydrated condition were evaluated through dynamic compression experiments with various loading frequencies, whereas the localized viscoelasticity of bamboo’s microstructural phases, viz. fibers and parenchyma cells, were evaluated separately through series of nano-indentation studies. The viscoelastic responses of the bamboo’s building blocks were further evaluated at the molecular level, using the computational creep tests via constant force Steered Molecular Dynamics (SMD) simulations. A phenomenological viscoelastic model was then developed to explain the observed microstructure–viscoelastic property relationship. Based on the model and conducted microstructural characterizations, it was believed that the small evolved viscous phases within the parenchyma cells were mainly responsible for the smaller viscoelasticity in bulk bamboo at lower loading frequencies, whereas the exhibited larger viscoelasticity at higher loading frequencies was stemmed out from the concurrent contribution of fibers and parenchyma cells. The findings could be important for understanding the intrinsic viscoelasticity in other biological materials with hierarchical structures, as well as for optimizing the design of bio-inspired composites with favorable structural properties. Although the bamboo material has excellent mechanical properties, the anisotropic mechanical properties across and along the bamboo culm hinder its use as the structural material. As the bamboo fibers are the source of the mechanical properties for bamboo, a fundamental understanding on the structure and mechanical behaviors of bamboo fiber and its constituents enables us to figure out the origin of the anisotropic mechanical properties. In this work, the mechanical response of the cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin under uniaxial tensile at the strain rate of 10 8 s −1 is investigated by molecular dynamics simulation and the molecular conformational change under the tensile deformation is in situ captured. The breakage of the hydrogen bonds and slippage of the linear polymer chains are dominant for the failure of the cellulose. The normal stress dominated fracture mechanism is the key to the failure of the hemicellulose whereas the shear stress dominated fracture mechanism is the main failure mode for the lignin. The revealed relationship between the structure and mechanical properties of the cell wall constituents in bamboo fibers provides a guideline for assembling of the basic constituents and for modifying their structure to obtain a material that has isotropic mechanical properties and maintains the excellent mechanical properties of the bamboo. High mechanical performance coupled with sustainability gives to bamboo a high potential to substitute conventional construction materials in various applications. In particular, there are countries in which this material has been used in construction for millennia and represents an asset, on the contrary, there are countries where there is still not enough knowledge of the structural properties of locally-grown bamboo. In these cases, it is important to extend the knowledge of the mechanical properties of local bamboo species supported by the development of suitable standardised testing procedures. In this view, the paper presents the results of an experimental study for the mechanical characterization of five bamboo species cultivated in Italy ( Phyllostachys bambusoides, edulis, iridescens, violascens and vivax ). For compressive tests, the used methodology is compliant with ISO Standards; for tensile test, the procedure suggested by ISO is very difficult to apply so different set ups have been proposed and in the second part of the paper a critical discussion about ISO methodology and its possible improvements are reported. The findings from this research shed light on current challenges and on the possible future steps for a wider uptake of natural materials in constructions.

: Multiscale structural insights of load bearing bamboo: A computational modeling approach

Can bamboo be used in place of rebar?

No Access Published Online: 10 January 2020 Now a days, all the buildings and structural components are mainly depends on usage of RCC. The steel present in the RCC is responsible for taking the tensile stress that is developed in the structure. Environmental Pollution that occurring due to the manufacturing process of steel and an eager effect to find out the alternative material in building construction tends to move our attention towards Bamboo, a cheap and mostly available material.

Bamboo is a kind of giant grass and an orthotropic material. Bamboo was used as a construction material in early days. The main target of the study is to reimburse the conventional materials like steel by naturally available bamboo sticks. Bamboo proves to provide good reinforcement as it holds very good tension and compressive strength.

The flexural strength of the beam having bamboo reinforcement shows greater strength which helps to improve the usage of bamboo.

Can bamboo be used as rebar?

Bamboo Helps Make Concrete Both Stronger & More Sustainable Steel-reinforced concrete is the most common building material in the world, and developing countries use close to 90% of the cement and 80% of the steel consumed by the global construction sector.

However, very few developing countries have the ability or resources to produce their own steel or cement. Out of 54 African nations, for instance, only two are producing steel. The other 52 countries all compete in the global marketplace for this ever-more-expensive, seemingly irreplaceable material.

But according to, steel is not irreplaceable. There’s a material alternative that grows in the tropical zone of our planet, an area that coincides closely with the developing world: bamboo. Bamboo belongs to the botanical family of grasses and is extremely resistant to tensile stress and is therefore one of nature’s most versatile products.

This has to do with the way the grass evolved, adapting to natural forces like wind. In contrast to wood, the bamboo culm or haulm, which are botanical terms for the stem of a grass, is thin and hollow. This allows it to move with the wind, unlike a tree, which tries to simply withstand any natural forces it is exposed to.

This adaptation for flexible movement required nature to come up with a very light but tension-resistant fiber in the bamboo culm which is able to bend in extreme ways without breaking. In its ability to withstand tensile forces, bamboo is superior to timber and even to reinforcement steel.

Bamboo has been used in construction for many years. Given its outstanding tensile properties, replacing steel reinforcement in reinforced structural concrete with bamboo is of high interest to many architects who are of a sustainable mindset. However, the natural form of bamboo poses many problems when it is used as reinforcement in concrete.

Bamboo, if left untreated, can swell with water and rot. Shrinkage and long-term durability are some of the drawbacks of using natural bamboo in structural concrete, which result in its segregation from concrete matrix. As a result, it hasn’t been used to reinforce concrete with much success—at least not until now To overcome those issues, a new bamboo composite material has been developed at the Chair of Architecture and Construction Professor Dirk E.

Hebel, that has a high tensile capacity and performs well in a concrete matrix in the long-term. The material is strong and highly versatile and could serve as an effective replacement for steel in reinforced concrete. Instead of using bamboo in its natural tubular state as is traditionally the case, Hebel’s method first extracts the plant’s natural fibres before combining them with an organic resin.This composite material, termed BambooTECH, is highly versatile and lends itself to tooling and manipulation in a manner similar timber once it’s pressed into shape.

When fashioned into thin rods, the composite material can be used as the reinforcing structural matrix for concrete in the same way as steel. Speaking at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore last year, Hebel said the use of bamboo in lieu of steel had the potential to “revolutionize our building industry and finally provide an alternative to the monopoly of reinforced concrete.

“The material’s tensile strength aroused our interest as architects and engineers and inspired us to investigate the possibility of extracting the fiber from the natural bamboo, transforming it into a manageable industrial product, and introducing it as a viable building material, an alternative to steel and timber.

Bamboo composite material can be produced in any of the familiar shapes and forms in which steel and timber are produced. Like them, the material can be used to build wall structures for houses or any other buildings. More interestingly, it can be used for specific applications that best take advantage of the material’s tensile strength, such as reinforcement systems in concrete or beams for ceilings and roof structures.” Bamboo possesses some of the same sustainability benefits as timber when employed as a building material, because as a form of plant matter, it’s a completely renewable resource that can be rapidly replenished by means of natural processes.

  • It grows much faster than wood, is usually available in great quantities, and is easy to obtain.
  • It is also known for its unrivalled capacity to capture carbon and could therefore play an important role in reducing carbon emissions worldwide – another advantage for developing nations in light of the trade in carbon emission certificates.
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Simply from an economic perspective, most developing nations should be interested in the material. It could strengthen local value chains, bring jobs and trade to those countries, and lower their dependency on international markets. It has its own advantages compared to timber as well, given that it’s harvested from grass plants as opposed to trees.

  1. Unlike timber, the harvesting of bamboo does not destroy the plant that produced it, because the root system is left unaffected in the soil.
  2. This means that bamboo does not need to be replanted the way trees are after harvesting, as the root system remains in the soil where it continues to produce new shoots.

The Future Cities Laboratory is also investigating ways to make construction materials from : Bamboo Helps Make Concrete Both Stronger & More Sustainable

Is bamboo strong enough to build a house?

( Faizal Ramli / Shutterstock.com) Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. Flexible and lightweight, Bamboo is a sustainable building material that is actually stronger than wood, bricks or even concrete. This is especially important in earthquake prone areas of the world like Indonesia.

For a building to be earthquake proof, it needs to be strong enough and light weight, as well as flexible enough to move to be able to withstand shaking. Bamboo construction was earthquake tested in 2018 on the Indonesian island of Lombok. After a series of earthquakes most of the concrete buildings near the epicenter were damaged or destroyed.

Houses made of bamboo survived. Now, a new project is helping villages in the area rebuild with bamboo according to Fast Company. “Bamboo is a lightweight material, and it’s very strong,” Marcin Dawydzik, a structural engineer at the London office of Ramboll, the engineering, design, and consulting company that designed a template for the bamboo houses told Fast Company.

“As the earthquake happens, the house will move a little bit and wobble and shake. But that actually means that the energy is being dissipated, and all that movement makes it survive very strong earthquakes,” Dawydzik said. The engineer became involved in the project after he found out that a friend living in Lombok’s bamboo house survived while her neighbors poorly constructed concrete homes did not.

“I thought, I’m an engineer, working for an engineering company,” he said. “I have the skills. How can we help?” That’s when he came to Indonesia to see the destruction first-hand. According to a company press release, he said, ” Villages were flattened with bricks and rubble scattered all around, in many cases the building foundations were all that remained.

  • This was not an unusually powerful earthquake for the region, but lack of reinforcement in the buildings meant the damage, and consequential loss of life, was far greater than it should have been.
  • What I found even more disturbing was that communities had already started rebuilding with the same absence of structural integrity that had existed in the destroyed buildings!” That’s when he began to work on a bamboo design that would be able to withstand earthquakes.

First, Dawydzik and his team of engineers met with local people to ascertain what their needs were so that they didn’t impose their western ideas on the designs. Convincing people to use bamboo was an issue because even though it was readily available and used in Indonesia for construction, there was a stigma attached to it.

  1. Bamboo is viewed in Indonesia a little bit as a kind of poor man’s timber,” he told Fast Company.
  2. That’s what they call itThey look to the Western world and they see big concrete buildings full of glass and steel and concrete and they want to live the same way.” But, Dawydzik points out that concrete is only as strong as the reinforcements inside it and if the building is badly designed or if the concrete is made incorrectly, the building will fail during an earthquake.

Concrete is also not an environmentally sound building material and contributes to climate change. When the engineering team returned to London, they partnered with researchers at the University College London (UCL) who used 3D scanning of bamboo to make the home model as structurally sound as possible.

They wanted to create a digital blueprint of each bamboo pole used according to Rodolfo Lorenzo, an engineering professor at the university. This enabled the engineers to understand how each pole would perform. Three model homes were built in three villages in late 2019 when the engineers partnered with a local nonprofit Grenzeloos Milieu,

They used both skilled and unskilled community members and explained how the new structures would resist earthquakes. During the building of the model homes, a UCL team scanned every piece of bamboo used. The nonprofit is now working with the communities to grow their own bamboo that will be used to construct houses.

Young bamboo shoots can be used for food, and after two years to construct furniture and after five years, the plants are large enough to build houses from according to Fast Company. The team is also currently working to tweak the design and to create a DIY manual that is similar to what you get from IKEA.

Only you are not assembling a table or chair, you are building a home. This bamboo structure can be used anywhere bamboo grows to build strong, safe, affordable, and green homes. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Norway will Pay Indonesia to Reduce Deforestation and Cut Emissions Build Your Own Bamboo Bicycle With This Awesome DIY Kit This New Rapid Response Factory Will Build Post-Disaster Housing

Is bamboo cheaper than concrete?

Bamboo seen as ideal building material for sustainable homes By Cathy Rose A. Garcia, Managing Editor BAMBOO isn’t often used to build homes in the Philippines, as many consider this as “a poor man’s material.” Base Bahay Foundation, Inc. is hoping to change this perception, as it pushes for the use of bamboo as an alternative building technology for socialized housing in the country.

What we want to change with this misconception is that bamboo, just like any other material, can be used just as well for strong structures when used properly and with the sufficient technology,” Maricen Jalandoni, president of Base Bahay Foundation, Inc. said in an e-mail interview with BusinessWorld,

She said a German engineer named Corina Salzer wrote her master’s thesis in 2012 on the use of bamboo for affordable homes in Asia and Pacific countries that face natural disasters every year. “The Philippines has both the bamboo — a resource that grows incredibly fast and is freely available — and the complexities of a developing country with challenges on housing and natural disasters.

  1. This makes bamboo an ideal building material for sustainable housing in the country; especially for the many people living in informal settlements, vulnerable to disasters,” she said.
  2. Base Bahay, together with non-governmental organizations and Hilti Foundation, pioneered the research and development of new bamboo building techniques.

Luis Lopez, head of technology at Base Bahay Foundation, Inc. said they developed the cement bamboo frame technology (CBFT), a prefabricated frame system that uses load-bearing bamboo with metal connections and mortar cement plaster. “The raw materials and connections are tested to ensure a durable and reliable load transfer that will allow for a structural design that will match the intended resistance of the system.

This system is also tested for resistance to earthquakes, typhoons, fires, and insect infestation,” Mr. Lopez said. To address concerns over ” bokbok ” termite infestation in bamboo homes, Base has also developed a treatment process that eliminates bamboo starch and introduced solutions to protect it from termites.

In January, Base Bahay Foundation, Inc. launched the Base Innovation Center (BIC), considered the “first research and testing facility for sustainable and disaster-resilient construction technologies” in the Philippines. “BIC is a venue for research and testing programs, as well as continuing professional education and training.

We had built this with the goal of advancing bamboo-based technology and other alternative building technologies in mind — towards creation of a better sustainable future,” Dr. Pablo Jorillo, general manager of Base Bahay Foundation, Inc. said. The center has a universal testing machine, a bamboo wall panel reaction frame, fabrication tables, and a model house, where new materials and building techniques are tested.

MORE COST-EFFICIENT Base is hoping to widen the acceptance of cement-bamboo frame houses in the country. Mr. Lopez said cement-bamboo frame houses are “more cost-efficient by 15 to 20%, compared to a conventional house of the same quality.” “For our projects, we make sure to build houses that are no less than 25 square meters to ensure a comfortable and decent space for the families to live in With bamboo and cement plaster as its main components, the CBFT-produced homes and structures have also been thoroughly tested and proven to be disaster-resilient, insect-resilient.

  1. Apart from being more affordable, it is also able to provide a more comfortable indoor temperature than conventional cement houses,” he said.
  2. A cement-bamboo frame house also has 74% less environmental impact compared to conventional concrete house, Mr.
  3. Lopez noted.
  4. In absolute terms, this relates to a reduction of 9.3 tons of carbon monoxide CO2 equivalents over a service life of 25 years,” he said.

A cement-bamboo frame house typically costs around P8,500-P9,500 per sq.m. with an average of P225,000 for a 25 sq.m. house, Mr. Jorillo said. “The total cost will ultimately also depend on the location and wind zone of the area. The house includes the space for a common area, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom which can further be divided into two rooms,” he said.

MORE HOMES Base has already helped build over 800 homes, when the Hilti Foundation teamed up with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific to build homes using sustainable materials in Estancia, Iloilo after super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) devastated the area. “Since then, Base has helped build over 800 homes while providing livelihood to farmers and treatment workers within the value chain; from bamboo harvesting, treatment, to house construction — Base’s supply partners harvest, treat, and conduct quality-controls of more than 100,000 full culm bamboos annually,” Ms.

Jalandoni said. She said the foundation is aiming to build 10,000 cement-bamboo frame houses in Negros Occidental, with partners, Habitat for Humanity and HILTI Foundation in line with the Negros Occidental Impact Coalition. “By using bamboo, Base also supports the livelihood of bamboo farmers and workers in the supply and treatment process, creating a green value chain from bamboo harvesting, treatment, and finally construction of the houses.

Can bamboo structural damage?

The risk of structural damage to buildings posed by certain trees and plants growing nearby has been well publicized since the droughts of the 1970s. Now there is increasing evidence that Bamboo is another menace; just like the seemingly ubiquitous Japanese Knotweed, it is not indigenous but often an innocent introduction into our gardens.

Bamboo is a member of the grass family and is an extremely fast-growing plant. The plants may be broadly categorized as either running or clumping. Running bamboo rhizomes or stems spread away from the original plant, and clumping bamboo stems form in circles that grow larger in diameter as more stems develop.

Both types can cause structural damage to buildings. The Running bamboo may manoeuvre its way into any opening in a building; the above photograph shows the stems emerging from beneath a basin in a ground floor bathroom having entered the building from neighbouring land.

If the foundations to a building are weak or cracked, the bamboo can aggravate these problems. The size of the cracks through which the bamboo grows will increase as the stems grow thicker and more plentiful. Clumping bamboo might not spread outward as aggressively, but it too will grow without stopping.

That growth can put pressure on foundations if the bamboo is planted right next to a building. Government advice on controlling non-native invasive plant species is available here, Avoid structural damage to your property and neighbouring buildings by refraining from planting bamboo in close proximity.

What is the hardiest bamboo?

Cold Hardy Bamboo Plant Options – Today, there are a number of hardy bamboo varieties in the genus Fargesia that have the highest cold tolerance for bamboo plant cultivars. These cold tolerant bamboos create gorgeous in shade to partial shaded locations.

F. denudate is an example of these cold weather bamboos that has an arching habit and is not only cold tolerant but tolerates heat and humidity as well. It is suitable to USDA zone 5 through 9. F. robusta (or ‘Pingwu’) is an upright bamboo with a clumping habit and, like the previous bamboo, handles the heat and humidity of the southeastern United States. ‘Pingwu’ will do well in USDA zones 6 through 9. F. rufa ‘Oprins Selection’ (or Green Panda), is another clumping, cold hardy and heat tolerant bamboo. It grows to 10 feet (3 m.) and is hardy to USDA zones 5 through 9. This is the bamboo that is the favorite food of the giant panda and will grow well in most any environment. A newer varietal, F. scabrida (or Asian Wonder) has narrow leaves with orange culm sheaths and steel-blue stems when young that mature to an olive green. A good selection for through 8.

With these new varieties of cold hardy bamboos, everyone can bring a little piece of paradise into their home garden. : Hardy Bamboo Varieties: Growing Cold Hardy Bamboo Plants

What is the thickest type of bamboo?

The tallest bamboo in the world, Dendrocalamus giganteus (Giant Bamboo) is an impressive evergreen bamboo with huge, upright, incredibly thick, dull green to dark blue-green canes. The culms are extremely robust and thick walled, reaching nearly one foot in diameter (30 cm).

They are covered with a white waxy crust when young. A fast grower, the new shoots can grow up to 12 in. per day (30 cm). Giant Bamboo flowers approximately once every 40 years. Easy to grow, this clump-forming bamboo makes a gorgeous architectural specimen of breathtaking stature. It is also excellent for construction, furniture, food and crafts.

It can be grown successfully in lowlands on rich loam or alluvial soils, where humidity is high. Hardy to 25ºF (-4ºC).

Grows up to 80-100 ft. tall (24-30 m) and 40-50 ft. wide (12-15 m). A full sun or partial shade lover, it is best grown in fertile, humus-rich, moist but well-drained soils, Remove weak, dead, damaged or spindly stems in spring and thin to show off stems to best effect. Cut out any flowering shoots promptly to discourage more from forming. Propagate by seed or division. Native to Burma, Bhutan, China, Thailand

Not sure which Bamboos to pick? Compare All Bamboos Buy Dendrocalamus giganteus (Giant Bamboo)

Can bamboo be as strong as steel?

How bamboo surpasses steel? – Yes, bamboo is stronger than steel in regards to the tensile strength. Steel has a tensile strength of 23,000 pounds per square inch. But bamboo surpasses steel with a noticeable lead at 28,000 pounds, Noticed the word tensile strength in the mix? That is because when we consider the strength of a material, there are variables to keep in mind.

Is bamboo the strongest wood?

Is Bamboo Harder than Traditional Hardwoods? – The answer: a resounding yes ! In fact, it is 2-3 times harder than most hardwoods, including oak! The hardness of wood is measured by the Janka Hardness Test – a test used for universally categorizing woods in terms of their hardness. Impressed? We are too!