Shear behavior of bamboo reinforced concrete beams

This research work aimed to study the usage of Bamboo strips as shear reinforcement in reinforced concrete (RC) beams. Four beams were considered in this study. The flexural reinforcement for all beams was the same. As for shear reinforcement, one beam was reinforced with conventional shear reinforcement with spacing (s=180 mm), while the other three beams were reinforced with bamboo strips with three different spacings (s=180 mm, s= 90 mm, and s=60 mm). The beams were subjected to a four-point bending test to plot the load-deflection curve for each beam. Results showed that the beam reinforced with bamboo strips spaced at 180 mm has 30% higher shear capacity than the beam with conventional shear reinforcement at the same spacing. Also, as the spacing of bamboo strips decreased, the shear capacity of beams increased nonlinearly.