Performance of bamboo reinforced concrete masonry shear walls

•Bamboo reinforcement provides enhanced shear capacity and ductility compared to unreinforced concrete block masonry.•Bamboo reinforced shear walls showed remarkably similar behaviour to one reinforced with steel.•Special care needs to be taken to prevent moisture absorption by bamboo in a cementitious matrix.•The use of low strength block compared to regular strength block did not significantly affect the shear wall behaviour.•Bamboo reinforcement presents a potential alternative to steel reinforcement for low-cost housing application.

In this study, the results from tests on a total of seven squat concrete masonry walls under quasi-static, in-plane, cyclic loading are reported. One wall was reinforced with conventional steel reinforcement vertically and horizontally in bond beams. The other walls were reinforced with varying amounts of Tonkin cane bamboo reinforcement both vertically and horizontally in bond beams. The performance of the walls is presented in this paper comparing different reinforcement layouts and both partially and fully grouted walls. The significance of this study is that it shows bamboo to be a viable alternative to steel reinforcement, which could be of use in low-cost housing applications in regions where bamboo is more cost-effective than steel.