Assessment of Material Characteristics, Mechanical Performance, Durability, and Shrinkage of Bamboo Fiber Reinforced Concrete for Sustainable Construction
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2026-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Concrete is the dominant structural material used worldwide in most infrastructures. While it has commendable engineering properties, including compressive strength and the ability to attain the various shapes desired, concrete is known to be relatively weak in resisting tensile forces and brittle. Finite resources and synthetic fibers were exploited to address the weakness of concrete. These fibers are found to be unfavorable for the environment and questionable from a sustainability perspective. Therefore, researchers aimed to utilize the vast bamboo plantation wealth as a fiber source. However, research on the engineering properties of bamboo fiber in concrete is limited. Moreover, those studies were conducted for a very short duration, a maximum of 90 days. Conversely, the existence of thousands of bamboo species and their variability necessitates further investigations into the fibers of the other species and how they affect the range of concrete properties.
Therefore, this research is designed and carried out in two phases. The first phase assesses the impact of extraction methods on the bamboo species, Yushania alpina. The second phase investigates the impact of incorporating these fibers on various concrete properties, including slump, compressive strength, split tensile strength, flexural strength, brittleness, cracking, performance in adverse environments, volume of voids, absorption capacity, and time-dependent behavior, specifically drying shrinkage of concrete. The impacts of mechanical, chemical, and combined extraction techniques on the absorption, chemical composition, morphology, thermal properties, and tensile strengths of the bamboo fiber were examined. On the other hand, the mechanical and durability properties were examined for 365 days, while the shrinkage was examined for 197 days. For this purpose, concrete specimens containing bamboo fiber in amounts of 0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1.0% by volume of concrete were prepared. The results of the investigations of bamboo fiber revealed that chemically extracted fibers showed the highest tensile strength, the removal of attachments on the surface of the fibers, the reduction of lignin content, reduced water absorption capacity, reduced diameter, increased surface roughness, and improved thermal properties. The composite of bamboo fiber and concrete showed results that are correlated with the dose of bamboo fiber. Accordingly, concrete with a bamboo fiber content of 0.5% or higher exhibited less performance in compressive, split tensile, and flexural strength, as well as durability. The study revealed that when the bamboo fiber dose in the concrete is 0.25%, it has comparable compressive strength and durability properties to plain concrete. The highest split tensile strength, the highest flexural strength, the lowest drying shrinkage, and reduced crack width were attained in specimens containing 0.25% bamboo fiber. The existing shrinkage prediction models were not satisfactorily able to trace the drying shrinkage development. Therefore, a new model is formulated and proposed for the use of bamboo fiber-reinforced concrete. Finally, bamboo fiber with a low dose can be utilized in construction.
Description
Keywords
Sustainability, bamboo fiber, mechanical properties, brittleness, cracking, durability, shrinkage, relationships, prediction equation