Assessing the flexural strength of reinforced concrete beams with bamboo splints co-assembled to steel rebars under three- and four-point flexural strength testing

Due to the environmental impact associated with steel production and its status as a nonrenewable resource, there is a growing interest in studying the potential replacement of steel with bamboo in reinforced concrete elements. The objective of this research is to investigate the impact of incorporating bamboo splints on the mechanical behavior of reinforced concrete beams under different loading conditions, specifically three-point and four-point flexural loadings. It is worth noting that the choice of loading conditions in flexural testing can result in different responses in bamboo splint-reinforced beams, which is often not considered in existing literature. Both individual bamboo splints and a combination of bamboo with steel (as minimum flexural reinforcement) were utilized for flexural strengthening purposes. In three-point bending tests, the beams reinforced with bamboo and steel demonstrated superior performance compared to those reinforced solely with the minimum flexural reinforcement. However, an opposite trend was observed during the four-point bending tests. Beams reinforced with three bamboo splints, replacing the steel bars, exhibited comparable results to those of beams reinforced solely with steel, showing a slight increase of 1.4% in the three-point bending test and a decrease of 7.5% in the four-point bending test. Beams utilizing two bamboo splints as a substitute for structural reinforcement also yielded results comparable to those reinforced solely with steel, with a difference of 9.2%. These findings indicate that beams reinforced with bamboo splints co-assembled with steel rebars offer greater resistance against flexural forces and perform better when subjected to a three-point bending test.