Assessment of flexural behaviour of coconut shell concrete beam reinforced bamboo wood and steel stirrups

This paper presents the study on the flexural behaviour of bamboo reinforced coconut shell aggregate concrete beams together with normal weight concrete beams (NWCB). The grade of coconut shell aggregate concrete, a lightweight concrete (LWC) produced using coconut shell aggregate obtained from agricultural waste as lightweight aggregate, referred to here as CSC was 20N/mm at 28 days. The grade for normal weight concrete was 20N/mm using conventional stone aggregates. The beams prepared for study were of size 150 mm x 250 mm x 1500 mm and tested in flexure. Three beams were of normal weight concrete with steel reinforcement (NWCB), three beams were of CSC with steel reinforcement (CSCB), three beams were of CSC with split bamboo as reinforcement (BCSC) and three beams were of CSC with split bamboo wrapped with binding wire as reinforcement (BCSCB) totally twelve (12) beams were tested and their behaviour was reported. From the experimental results, it was observed that the load carrying capacity of the NWC beams were 8.04%, 23.21% and 17.86% higher than CSCB, BCSCB, and BCSCB* beams respectively. The stiffness behaviour of BCSC beam showed similar pattern with that of NWC up to failure. CSCB beams also exhibited various cracks thus, the crack width and crack spacing was small. The CSCB and BCSCB beams exhibited higher deflection under constant load until failure, compared to NWCB beams. Higher concrete strains for the reinforcement in the CSCB shows stronger bond between CSC and the reinforcements,