In this paper, an experimental study about bamboo reinforced concrete beams is presented and discussed. Ten reinforced concrete beams were tested, where eight of them were reinforced with Dendrocalamus giganteus bamboo-splint and two reference beams were reinforced with steel bars. Two factors were studied: the longitudinal reinforcement ratio (1.6 and 3.2%) and the area/perimeter ratio of the bamboo-splint (0.25 and 0.33 cm). For each factor combination, two beams were cast. Force vs. displacement and force vs. strain curves are presented and discussed. It was found out that the structural behaviour of bamboo-concrete beams follow the Bernoulli-Kirchoff bending theory. Therefore, the usual design procedures of reinforced concrete can be used to design the bamboo-concrete beams. The load capacity of the bamboo-concrete beams is almost the same as that of reinforced with steel; nevertheless, are more stiffer than those ones.
reinforced concrete; beam; non metallic reinforcement
