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Flexural behavior of glulam bamboo beams reinforced with near surface

mounted steel bars

Article in Materials Research Innovations · April 2015

DOI: 10.1179/1432891715Z.0000000001377

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 Flexural behaviour of glulam bamboo beams
reinforced with near-surface mounted steel
bars
Y. Wei*, M. Q. Zhou and D. J. Chen
In order to improve the structural performance of the bamboo used in civil engineering applications,
this paper proposes that near-surface mounted steel bars could be used to strengthen glulam
bamboo beams. A total of five glulam bamboo beams, one unreinforced and four reinforced,
were constructed and tested to be failed under a four-point loading system, and the flexural
behaviour was investigated by comparing the differences. The experimental results show that
the load-bearing capacity and cross-sectional rigidity of the reinforced beams were enhanced
significantly compared to those of the unreinforced beam. It was also found that the near-
surface mounted steel bars could share the tensile stress of bamboo beams and work effectively
during the loading process. Moreover, the plane-section assumption of the cross-sectional strain
distribution along the height was verified and an analytical model proposed to predict the cross-
sectional rigidity of the reinforced bamboo beams. Finally, the predicted load–displacement
curves agreed favourably with the experimental curves.
Keywords: Bamboo glulam beams, Steel bars, Near-surface mounted, Reinforcement, Bending tests

Introduction behaviour of bamboo beams has also been studied

Recently, due to global warming and sustainable develop-
ment issues, natural and green materials have become
increasingly attractive for the building structures.
Bamboo, because of its high growth rate, high mechanical
strength, low density, low cost and ability to resolve
atmospheric carbon dioxide, is expected to contribute sig-
nificantly to future civil engineering structures.1− 3
Furthermore, a number of researchers have looked into
this issue. For example, Ghavami4 presented a concise
summary regarding the applications of bamboo as struc-
tural concrete elements, including beams, shutters, frames
and elements. Moreover, Agarwal et al.5 suggested that
bamboo has the potential to act as a substitute for steel
for the reinforcement of beams and columns. Terai and
Minami6 studied the performance of reinforced concrete
beams that used bamboo as the main rebar and stirrups.
Lima et al.,7 based on a durability analysis, concluded
that the tensile strength and Young’s modulus of
bamboo, used as a concrete reinforcement, have no sig-
nificant variation when there are changes due to it
being wet or dry. Finally, Li et al.8 tested the flexural be-
haviour of lightweight bamboo-steel composite slabs and
felt that such slabs have the potential to replace their con-
crete or wooden equivalents in low buildings. The flexural
College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Longpan Road
No. 159, Nanjing 210037, China
*Corresponding author, email wy78@njfu.edu.cn
recently by many researchers.9− 13 According to certain
existing experimental results, the failure modes of
bamboo beams are often revealed as a fracture of the
tensile fibres and a large mid-span deformation under a
bending load. Consequently, near-surface mounted
(NSM) steel bars are proposed in this paper to strengthen
glulam bamboo beams, and as a result the load-bearing
capacity and cross-sectional rigidity of bamboo beams
are expected to be enhanced. To verify the validity of
this approach, the flexural performance of glulam
bamboo beams that were simply supported but strength-
ened with NSM steel bars was analysed by conducting a
bending test.
The experimental procedure
In this study, glulam bamboo was used for the manufac-
ture of beams by utilising modern recombination technol-
ogy. Glulam bamboo is made up of bamboo fibres that
have been dried, impregnated, formed into a billet and
solidified under both a high pressure and high tempera-
ture. According to the results of a bamboo coupons
test, the flexural strength and elastic modulus of the
glulam bamboo used in the test were 119·6 and
11408 MPa, respectively. The steel bars applied for the
NSM reinforcement were categorised as Grade
HRB335 in China and have diameters of either 12 or
16 mm. According to the mechanical properties provided
by the manufacturer, the yielding strength and elastic
modulus of the steel bars are 335 MPa and 200 GPa,

© W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2015

Received 30 October 2014; accepted 4 December 2014
S1-98 DOI 10.1179/1432891715Z.0000000001377 Materials Research Innovations 2015 VOL 19 SUPPL 1
 Wei et al. Flexural behaviour of glulam bamboo beams

1 The details of the specimens: a B0; b B-S12-1; c B-S16-1; d B-S12-2; e B-S16-2

respectively. Furthermore, the adhesive used for bonding initial stage was almost linear; in contrast, the displace-
the steel bars is an epoxy resin with a high tensile bond ments of the reinforced beams were significantly smaller
strength to bamboo. A total of five beams were prepared than those of the unreinforced beam. It can therefore be
and tested; one unreinforced beam and four reinforced concluded that the cross-sectional rigidity of the
beams. All of the beams had a cross-section of 106 × bamboo beams were enhanced because of the reinforce-
160 mm and a length of 1870 mm. The unreinforced ment of the NSM steel bars. When loading about
beam was named B0, and the reinforced beams were 40–50% of the ultimate load, the plastic behaviour of all
named B-S12-1, B-S16-1, B-S12-2 and B-S16-2. The the beams, with or without reinforcement, became
first letter ‘B’ denotes the beam, the middle letter and increasingly significant, and the cross-sectional rigidity
digits indicate that steel bars are being used and provide decreased slowly as the load increased. The non-linear be-
their diameter and the last digit shows the number of haviour of the reinforced beams became more obvious
steel bars. For the reinforced beams, one or two longitudi- compared to that of the unreinforced beam because of
nal slots were set in their bottom face (Fig. 1), and then the yielding process of the steel bars. Up until the point
the steel bars were inserted and bonded to the pre-set that the first rupture of the tensile bamboo fibres
slots using adhesive, before being covered with bamboo appeared in the bottom face of the beams, the load
strips. reached the ultimate load-bearing capacity. After the
All of the beam specimens were tested by a four-point
bending system, and the beams had a support span of
1710 mm and an edge support distance of 570 mm
(Fig. 2). The bending tests were carried out with a
500 kN capacity bending testing machine. Additionally,
the linear variable displacement transducers were used
to measure the mid-span displacement. The bending
tests were performed with a displacement control rate of
2 mm/min. Nine strain gauges (numbering 1–9) were
attached at different locations along the height of the
mid-span section for each beam, including four strain
gauges at the top and bottom faces (Fig. 2).

Results and discussion

The load–deflection curves
The load–displacement curves of all the glulam bamboo
beams are shown in Fig. 3. For all of the curves, the 3 The load–displacement curves

2 The test setup

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Wei et al. Flexural behaviour of glulam bamboo beams
4 The typical failure modes of the specimens: a B0; b B-S12-1; c B-S12-2
first rupture, the load of the unreinforced beam rapidly
dropped to a low value. Moreover, as the NSM steel
bars can contribute to the maintenance of a tensile
force in the bottom tension zone, the reinforced beams
can support a larger loading force with a larger mid-
span displacement. When the ultimate mid-span displace-
ments were compared, which correspond to the ultimate
load, the ultimate displacement of B0 was 36·3 mm,
and the values of B-S12-1 and B-S16-1, with beams
reinforced by one steel bar, were 38·7 and 47·1 mm,
respectively. The corresponding values of B-S12-2 and
B-S16-2, with beams reinforced by two steel bars, were
43·3 mm and 39·8, respectively. In general, the ultimate
mid-span displacements of all the beams were far more
than the L/300 (i.e., 5·7 mm) required by Eurocode 5.14
Figure 4 presents the typical failure modes of the
glulam bamboo beams. For all of the beams, the first
rupture of the tensile bamboo fibres occurred in the
bottom face of specimens, which led to a subsequent
load drop; meanwhile, no local buckling or crushing
was found in the top compression zone. For the unrein-
forced beam, B0, the failure mechanism was initially
characterised by the fracture of the bamboo fibres,
which caused a progressive splitting and debonding of
the bamboo fibres at the tension zone; moreover, horizon-
tal cracks developed along the longitudinal direction.
Furthermore, the load-bearing capacity decreased step
by step during the loading process. For the reinforced
beams, the steel bars began to yield at about 25% of the
ultimate load and suffered a large bending deformation
that corresponded to the first rupture of the bamboo
fibres. Before being subjected to the ultimate load, no
S1-100 Materials Research Innovations 2015 VOL 19 SUPPL
slipping could be found between the NSM steel bars
and bamboo materials, and therefore the reinforcement
was effective in its strengthening role. After the prelimi-
nary fracture of the bamboo fibres near the bottom face
of the beams, the NSM steel bars continued to contribute
to the load-bearing after a partial delamination; however,
the reliable bond provided by the surrounding bamboo
gradually reduced. With the increase of the mid-span dis-
placement, the reinforced beams suffered a significant
deformation, which was accompanied with the splitting
and delamination of the bamboo fibres. In the whole
process of failure, the NSM steel bars provided a more
ductile behaviour for the reinforced beams when com-
pared to that of the unreinforced beam.
The load-bearing capacity and sectional rigidity
The test results of the specimens are summarised in
Table 1. The load-bearing capacity of the glulam
bamboo beams was enhanced significantly by the NSM
steel bars. Compared to the unreinforced beam, the ulti-
mate load (Pmax) increased by 22·3–31·7%. It should be
noted that the ultimate load is not always enhanced by
an increase in the number of NSM steel bars; this
phenomenon can be attributed to the overlarge area loss
of bamboo beams, which led to an excessive weakening
of the bamboo fibres in the tension zone. When the
load (PL/300) which corresponded to the mid-span displa-
cement of the L/300 prescribed in Eurocode 514 was com-
pared, the PL/300 of the reinforced beams was enhanced
by 20·2–36·9% more than that of the unreinforced
beam. It can be concluded that the cross-sectional rigidity
of the bamboo beams was enhanced significantly by the
1
 Wei et al. Flexural behaviour of glulam bamboo beams

Table 1 The test results of the specimens

Load corresponding to mid-span

displacement of L/300 Ultimate displacement
Ultimate load
Beam label Pmax (kN) Increase PL/300 (kN) Increase △u (mm) Remarks

B0 140·29 N/A 21·05 N/A 36·3 Unreinforced specimen

B-S12-1 171·65 22·3% 28·83 36·9% 38·7 Reinforced with one 12 mm bar
B-S16-1 184·70 31·7% 27·65 31·4% 47·1 Reinforced with one 16 mm bar
B-S12-2 171·89 22·5% 25·31 20·2% 43·3 Reinforced with two 12 mm bars
B-S16-2 173·14 23·4% 27·43 30·5% 39·8 Reinforced with two 16 mm bars

reinforcement. However, the design of the cross-section of
the reinforced bamboo beams is still determined by the
demands of the cross-sectional rigidity rather than those
of the load-bearing capacity.
According to the composition of the cross-section of
beams reinforced with NSM steel bars, the effective
bending rigidity (EIy)eff for the reinforced beams can be
obtained by the following equation:


bb hb 3
(EIy )eff = + bb hb db E b
2 Δ=
12
 4 
πd πd 2 2
+ + ds E s
64 4 where △ (mm) is the mid-span deflection; P (N) is the
where bb (mm) and hb (mm) are, respectively, the width
and the height of the cross-section of the beam; db
(mm) is the distance between the neutral axes of the
local bamboo section and those of the whole cross-
section; d (mm) is the diameter of the steel bar; ds (mm)
is the distance between the neutral axes of the steel bar
and those of the whole cross-section; and Eb (GPa) and
Es (GPa) are, respectively, the elastic modulus of the
bamboo and steel bar.
When the effective bending rigidity (EIy)eff was deter-
mined by equation (1), the load–displacement curves
could be predicted for the reinforced beams if no
account was taken of the plastic behaviour using the fol-
lowing relationship:
Pa
(3 L2 − 4a2 ) (2)
48(EIy )eff
(1)
total applied load; L (mm) is the beam span; a (mm) is
the edge support distance; and (EIy)eff (N mm2) is the
effective bending rigidity.
Figure 5 shows a comparison between the predicted
and experimental curves for the glulam bamboo beams
reinforced with NSM steel bars. The analytical curves
generally agreed favourably with the experimental ones,
which could verify the validity of the analytical model.

5 A comparison between the predicted and test curves of the reinforced beam specimens: a B-S12-1; b B-S16-1; c B-S12-2; d
B-S16-2

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Wei et al. Flexural behaviour of glulam bamboo beams

6 The typical load–strain curves of the specimens: a B0; b B-S12-1; c B-S16-1

The load–strain curves
The typical load–strain curves in the mid-span cross-
section of the specimens are illustrated in Fig. 6. The
tensile strain is positive, whereas the compressive strain
is negative. At the early loading stage, the load–strain
curves displayed an almost linear pattern in both the com-
pression and tension zones for all the specimens. As the
load increases, the load–strain curves display a non-
linear behaviour because of the decreased cross-sectional
rigidity. When subjected to an identical loading force, the
strain at the bottom and top face of the reinforced beams
decreased significantly compared to that of the

7 The typical distribution of the cross-section strains: a B0; b B-S12-1; c B-S16-1

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unreinforced one. For example, when the loading was
80 kN, the maximum tensile strains of B0, B-S12-1 and
B-S16-1 were, respectively, 3849, 3282 and 2960 μe, and
the corresponding maximum compressive strains were,
respectively, −4202, −3845 and −3200 μe. When the
loading was 100 kN, the maximum tensile strains of B0,
B-S12-1 and B-S16-1 were, respectively, 5110, 4144 and
3903 μe, and the corresponding maximum compressive
strains were, respectively, −5536, −4957 and −4107 μe.
The maximum tensile or compressive strains in the
reinforced beams were 17–24% lower than those in the
unreinforced beam. This phenomenon illustrated that
the NSM steel bars could effectively share the tensile
stress of bamboo beams during the loading process.
The cross-sectional strain distribution
Figure 7 shows the typical strain profiles of the bamboo
beams. For the unreinforced beam, the maximum
tensile strain was 7772 μe and the maximum compressive
strain was 10 132 μe at failure. For the beam reinforced
with one 12 mm bar, the maximum tensile strain was
9094 μe and the maximum compressive strain was
11 528 μe. For the beam reinforced with one 16 mm bar,
the maximum tensile strain was 11 442 μe and the
maximum compressive strain was 12 772 μe. The NSM
steel bars enhanced the maximum tensile or compressive
strains at failure for the bamboo beams, indicating that
the reinforcement could contribute to the developing
strength of bamboo materials. For all of the beams, it
can be seen that the distribution of the cross-sectional
strain along the height was basically linear prior to
failure, which verifies that the plane-section assumption
is valid for both the unreinforced and reinforced beams.
For B0, the neutral axis was located at 78 mm from the
bottom face of the beam, whereas the neutral axes of B-
S12-1 and B-S16-1 were located at 47 and 41 mm, respect-
ively. The results show that the NSM steel bars may move
the neutral axis downward for the reinforced beams, indi-
cating a more favourable redistribution of the section’s
stress.
Conclusions
In this paper, the flexural behaviour of glulam bamboo
beams reinforced with near-surface mounted steel bars
was investigated. The following conclusions can be
drawn:
The load-bearing capacity of the glulam bamboo
beams was enhanced significantly by the near-surface
mounted steel bars. Compared to that of the unreinforced
beam, the ultimate load (Pmax) of the reinforced beams
increased by 22·3–31·7%.
The load (PL/300) corresponding to the mid-span dis-
placement of L/300, which is prescribed in Eurocode 5,
of the reinforced beams was enhanced by 20·2–36·9%
more than that of the unreinforced beam. The cross-sec-
tional rigidity of the bamboo beams was enhanced signifi-
cantly by the reinforcement, but this factor still controls
the design demands for the reinforced beams.
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Wei et al. Flexural behaviour of glulam bamboo beams
The load–strain curves and cross-sectional strain distri-
bution demonstrated that the near-surface mounted steel
bars could effectively share the tensile stress for the
reinforced bamboo beams during the loading process
and that the plane-section assumption is valid for both
the unreinforced and reinforced beams.
An analytical model was proposed to predict the cross-
sectional rigidity of the bamboo beams reinforced with
the steel bars, and the comparisons illustrated that the
suggested model can effectively predict the load–displace-
ment curves of the reinforced beams.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 51208262), the Project of
Ministry of Housing and Urban–rural Development
(No. 2011-K2-9) and the Project of the Priority
Academic Programme Development of Jiangsu Higher
Education Institutions.
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