Feasibility of Using Palmyrah and Bamboo Strips as Reinforcement in Lintels

Abstract

Timber species such as Palmyrah, Bamboo and Babadua have been identified to have potential to replace reinforcing steel in concrete elements. This research was conducted to assess the feasibility of using Palmyrah and Bamboo strips as reinforcing material in lintels. The low ductility of such timber specimens, as observed during the experiments, governed this selection of a lightly loaded low risk structural element for the study. Tensile strength, water absorption and desorption characteristics, associated dimensional variations, anchorage bond strength and flexural strength of Palmyrah and Bamboo strips coated with different water repellents were evaluated using a series of laboratory experiments. Having identified double varnish coated water repellent technique to give the highest anchorage bond strength and lowest water absorption, four lintels were cast keeping two as unreinforced control specimens and two reinforced with Palmyrah and Bamboo strips. While both reinforced beams exhibited under-reinforced behaviour, one with Bamboo reinforcement achieved an incremental moment capacity of 250% and the beam with Palmyrah reinforcement achieved that of 168% compared to their respective unreinforced beams. Hence, it was concluded that both Palmyrah and Bamboo shows potential to be used as reinforcement for lintels.