Flexural capacity of the bamboo reinforced concrete beam with carbon Kevlar fiber.

Reinforced concrete is made up of two closely related components: concrete with a high compressive strength and reinforcement with a high tensile strength. Steel, as reinforcement, is apparently a non-renewable material. As a consequence, engineers are looking for a replacement for steel using bamboo, which is a natural material. In this study, researchers applied bamboo as reinforcement to the beam and beam flexural reinforcement using Carbon Kevlar Fiber Grade A. The objectives of this paper is to investigate the effect of replacing steel reinforcement with bamboo reinforcement and to compare the effect of retrofitting Carbon Kevlar Fiber covering the beam to the flexural strength of the beam. The bamboo cross-sectional dimensions of 1.5×1.5 cm and 164cm length. The stirrup reinforcement uses steel with dimensions of 8-100 mm. The beam tested is 170×15×25 cm in size with flexural strength testing using the three-point bending method with LVDT in the middle span of the beam. The test results shows that the capable to bear 29.6% higher loadings when equipped with Carbon Kevlar Fiber. The ultimate flexural strength of the beams with carbon Kevlar fiber was reached in earlier deformation implies that it's provide greater stiffness. Furthermore the additional of carbon Kevlar fiber reduce the over-cracking beam which potentially reduce or limit the damage of the structure due to the flexural mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]