Experimental study on variation of mechanical properties of a cantilever beam of bamboo

• We conducted free vibration tests on bamboo from different slice of bamboo.
• We pointed out variation of material properties in frequency spectrum.
• We showed that frequency spectrum analysis is a powerful tool to determine material properties especially for bamboo.
• We showed that material damping of bamboo has no relationship with material’s properties.

This paper aims to study mechanical properties’ variation of bamboo using frequency spectrum analysis (FSA). Two commonly used species of bamboo in Brazil, Dendrocalamus giganteus (DG) and Phyllostachys áurea (PA), are investigated. A series of free vibration tests are carried out using different slices from wall-thickness of bamboo in bending mode. Damping, natural frequency and dynamic Module of Elasticity (MOE) are calculated for each specimen. To validate experimentally obtained results, a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for Functionally Graded Materials beam (FGMs) is used with applying equations of variation of volume fraction of the investigated species bamboo.