Comparative study of mechanical properties of bamboo laminae and their laminates with woods and wood based composites

In the present work, an attempt has been made to study the mechanical properties of bamboo so as to explore the possibility of its' usage as structural material in place of wood. Dry bamboo culms of Dendrocalamus strictus were processed into thin laminae and cold pressed using epoxy resin to produce LBCs. Mechanical properties of bamboo laminae and their LBCs have been evaluated under different loading conditions. Similar to wood, there is better correlation for stiffness than strength of bamboo laminae under tensile, compressive and flexural loading but there are fewer correlations in mechanical properties of LBCs owing to random selection of laminae from different locations and also because of addition of epoxy during preparation of LBCs. Comparisons with woods indicate that average strength of bamboo laminae obtained under different loading conditions is better than softwoods and comparable with hard woods. It is inferred from the results that bamboo can be utilized for fabrication of LBCs. Furthermore, tests results and comparisons clearly show that LBCs can be used as an alternative to wood and wood based composites for structural purposes.