Experimental evaluation of the behaviour of bamboo-reinforced beam–column joints

The housing industry has a high energy consumption because of the widespread use of items such as concrete and steel for construction. Consequently, researchers have explored the use of bamboo, which is an eco-friendly material, as an alternative to steel in the construction of buildings. Bamboo is already used for constructing various structural members, such as beams, columns, slabs, and walls. However, no study has been performed on the behaviour of beam–column joints made of bamboo reinforcement. The present study focused on using bamboo as an alternative reinforcing material in beam–column joints. A series of laboratory tests were conducted for investigating the mechanical properties of bamboo. The failure of six full-scale bamboo-reinforced beam–column joints in a reaction frame was examined. Furthermore, the effectiveness of different configurations of beam–column joints was investigated in terms of the load–deformation characteristics, ultimate moment, cracking behaviour, and failure patterns through experimental testing. A comparative study of bamboo-reinforced beam–column joints with and without water-repellent treatment and steel-reinforced beam–column joints is conducted. The ultimate load-carrying capacity of the bamboo-reinforced beam–column joints was considerably larger than that of joints without any water-repellent treatment. The performance of steel-reinforced concrete joints was marginally better than that of bamboo-reinforced concrete joints.