Abstract/Photo copyright of: Ikponmwosa, E., Falade, F., Fapohunda, C. and Okosun, J.: Flexural performance of bamboo reinforced foamed aerated concrete beams with and without compression reinforcement. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, vol 3 (3), pp. 271-278, 2014
The results of investigation conducted to evaluate the flexural performance of foamed aerated concrete beams with bamboo splints as tensile reinforcement, but with and without shear links are reported in this paper. The properties assessed are density, compressive strength, crack pattern, deflection, and failure and moments. Foamed aer-ated concrete, having a cement-sand ratio of 1:3 was prepared. For foam generation, foaming agent and water in the ratio of 1:33 was prepared. A total of seventy-two numbers of 225 x 225 x 2350 mm beam specimens with bamboo splints as reinforce-ment, with and without shear links and compression reinforcement were tested for flexural strength. For the shear links, 8mm diameter steel reinforcement at 150 mm centres was used. The specimens were tested at 7, 21, 28 and 45 days of curing. The re-sults showed that beams specimens without compression and shear reinforcement ex-hibit shear failure while the beam specimens with compression and shear reinforcement displayed flexural failure. Larger deflection was recorded for beams without compres-sion and shear reinforcement than for beam specimens with compression and shear re-inforcement. Also beam specimens with compression and shear reinforcement devel-oped higher moment than specimens without compression reinforcement. From the re-sults of the investigations, it can be concluded that specimens with compression rein-forcement in the compression zone displayed a better flexural performance than speci-mens without compression reinforcement in the compression zone.
