Tensile and shear strength of four species of bamboo in Malaysia

Abstract

As one of the fastest growing plants on earth, bamboo has a lot of species that range in size from a few centimeters to many meters tall. Bamboo is a unique plant where it can reach their full height up to 30m in a period of 2 to 4 months. Even though bamboo has been used traditionally as a construction material for thousands of years, there are not many studies about the mechanical properties of the bamboo itself. Thus, this paper presents an investigation on tensile and shear strength of four species treated bamboos that are available in Malaysia, which include Bambusa Vulgaris, Dendrocalamus Asper, Gigantochloa Scortechinii and Shizostachyum Grande. All the test was conducted according to the International Standard Organization (ISO-22157-2004). From the test result, Bambusa Vulgaris and Dendrocalamus Asper possess high tensile strength, meanwhile, Gigantochloa Scortechinii shows the highest value of shear strength compared with other species. Moreover, the test result also shows that Shizostachyum Grande possesses the lowest tensile and shear strength. Thus, with the available data on bamboo properties, structural engineers should take the advantages of bamboo to be used as a construction material in modern design buildings.