Experimental Investigation on Concrete using Bamboo Fibre as Partial Replacement for Course Aggregate in Concrete

Utilization of concrete in almost every civil engineering applications have continued to place high demand on constituent concrete materials. Concrete is an extensively used construction material for its various advantages such as low cost, availability, fire resistance etc. But it cannot be used alone everywhere because of its low tensile strength. So, generally steel is used to reinforce the concrete. But considering high cost of steel, bamboo is one of the suitable replacements of reinforcing bar in concrete for low cost constructions. Bamboo is natural, cheap, widely available and most importantly strong in both tension and compression. To see the effect of bamboo fibre on compressive and flexure strength, bamboo reinforced Concrete cubes have been tested. On comparing the results with plain concrete cubes, strength becomes double in 50 days testing. Further singly and doubly reinforced beam with bamboo sticks have been cast and tested in flexure. It has been found that there is remarkably increase in the flexural strength and Modulus of elasticity of bamboo reinforced beam. First of all cubes, beams and cylinders are casted with traditional methods and later same casted by replacing coarse aggregates with 1%, 2% and 3% bamboo fibres. The behavior of specimens has to be studied and compared with conventional specimens.