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Experimental study on flexural performance of glued-laminated-timber-bamboo beams

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Abstract

Engineered bamboo, produced through the technique of gluing and reconstituting, has better mechanical properties than round bamboo and some wood products. This paper studies the flexural performance of laminated beams produced with timber and engineered bamboo. The six-layer beams were made from Douglas fir, spruce, bamboo scrimber and laminated bamboo, or a combination of these. It is confirmed that glued-laminated wood beams produced with wood of weak strength, like spruce, can be strengthened by gluing engineered bamboo lumbers on the outer faces, thus achieving better utilization of the fast growing economic wood species. Flexural failure of the laminated beams was primarily triggered by tensile fracture of the bottom fiber in mid-span, followed by horizontal tearing beside the broken surface. No relative slip between layers was observed before failure, therefore the flexural capacity of the laminated beams can be predicted using equilibrium and compatibility conditions according to the plane section assumption.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFC0703503), and R&D Project of Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development of People’s Republic of China (Grant No. 2016-K5-017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Engineering Structure Safety, Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences, No. 75 South Wanping Road, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Qingfeng Xu, Yubing Leng, Xi Chen, Lingzhu Chen & Zhuolin Wang

  2. School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Yubing Leng

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA

    Kent A. Harries

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  1. Qingfeng Xu
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  2. Yubing Leng
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  3. Xi Chen
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  5. Lingzhu Chen
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  6. Zhuolin Wang
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Correspondence to Qingfeng Xu.

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Xu, Q., Leng, Y., Chen, X. et al. Experimental study on flexural performance of glued-laminated-timber-bamboo beams. Mater Struct 51, 9 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-017-1135-2

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