Bambu: generalidades e seu emprego como reforço em vigas de concreto.

Abstract

The bamboo is a vegetable of excellent engineering properties and due to advantages as fast growth and ripening, low specific weight and high mechanical strength is a material with immense potential to be explored also in the rural constructions. In this work, a large revision on the bamboo is made, giving information on their taxonomy, habitat, treatments, and their several ways of use. One of the ways it can be employed is as reinforcement material in concrete beams, substituting steel bars. In this field, one of the factors mentioned as inconvenience is the interaction concrete-bamboo. Thus the problem of bonding was studied by pull out tests. The effect of the introduction of pins in the bamboo sticks was established. Pins of steel and also pins of bamboo, in different amounts in the internode of bamboo rods, were tested in a hundred of samples. Eight concrete beams reinforced with bamboo and two with steel, as reference, were tested in flexion. The bamboo rods were used without pins, with steel pins and with bamboo pins. Crack load, behavior load-deflexion, moment of rupture were obtained and comparisons among theoretical and experimental values were made. The results indicate that the pins improve the behavior of the pieces, however to have a larger load capacity it is necessary to use a larger amount of bamboo reinforcement, than that studied, due to the reduction of the section caused by the hole to put the pin.