Structural Bamboo Products

This is a pilot collaboration among the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR),and the United Kingdom Research Councils (RCUK), supporting collaborative research projects selected on a competitive basis that are comprised of researchers from at least three of the partner countries. 

This international project with MIT, the University of British Columbia (Canada) and the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) develops green construction materials and building codes for bamboo. China, India and Brazil have rapidly expanding economies with increasing demand for building materials. The production of conventional construction materials such as steel and concrete is energy intensive and unsustainable: concrete alone accounts for 5% of global CO2 emissions. Bamboo is a fast growing, renewable building material widely cultivated in these countries but not utilized to its full potential in modern construction. Its mechanical properties are similar to wood but it produces up to six times as much mass per hectare as conventional timber plantations. Structural bamboo products, similar to plywood, oriented strand board, or glue-laminated wood products, therefore have enormous potential to partially replace the use of more energy intensive materials in rapidly developing countries. This project aims to: characterize the mechanical behavior of bamboo as a material; develop methods for processing pieces of bamboo into structural products such as panels and beams; test structural bamboo panels and beams; suggest adaptations to existing wood building codes for structural bamboo products; and assess the energy performance and life cycle costs of buildings made using structural bamboo products.

If successful, the results of this research will contribute to the knowledge base and use of engineered bamboo and increase the sustainability of building products by the development of a renewable, lower-carbon alternative to conventional structural components. The development of building codes for structural bamboo products will contribute to the more efficient and widespread use of bamboo as a building material. Understanding energy inputs to structural bamboo products could help identify areas of possible savings. The project will also contribute towards the development of human resources, in training students and postdoctoral researchers