How is Bamboo a Sustainable Material in Construction Industry?

by Indovance Inc Indovance Inc

Although it has been employed in construction for a long time, bamboo is only used as a supplementary and decorative element.

The mass housing, disaster-prone housing, earthquake-resistant structures/houses, and other uses for the bamboo-based housing system are enormous.

Bamboo is a viable substitute for traditional building materials because of the forward-looking approach to sustainable construction.

Due to its affordability, strength, and seismic resilience, bamboo is also emerging as a promising building material.

Can bamboo thus replace other sustainable and resilient building materials in the mainstream?

Let’s find out.

Bamboo as a Construction Material

Bamboo is a fantastic building material because of its incredibly strong structure. Bamboo has a compressive strength twice as great as concrete and a compressive strength equivalent to steel. Compared to wood, bamboo fibre has a higher shear stress. Bamboo has a wider spread than wood does. Bamboo may also be bent without breaking. Bamboo is regarded as one of the materials that are extraordinarily strong when compared to steel, which has a tensile strength of 23,000 N per square inch.

Bamboo makes a fantastic disaster- and weather-resistant building material because of its flexibility, strength, and tube-like shape. Additionally, it is portable and light to travel from one place to another. It produces 35% more oxygen and absorbs 40% more carbon dioxide than trees do. There is no need to worry about bamboo being extinct because it is widespread and can grow up to over a metre in a single day. As evidence, 20 bamboo houses were located in the epicentre of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Costa Rica, and a group of bamboo houses withstood three typhoons that hit the Cook Islands.

Bamboo’s Properties that make it an Excellent Building Material

· By virtue of its tensile strength, bamboo is flexible and resistant to lateral shocks from earthquakes. 

· Bamboo has a high fire tolerance and can withstand temperatures of up to 4000 C. This is due to the high concentration of silicate acid and water.

· Bamboo can be paired with other materials such as mud, vegetable materials, and other daubs, to increase the structure’s capacity for absorbing energy.

· Bamboo provides a sustainable and renewable construction solution.

· Cost Effective and Easy to Cultivate.

· Elasticity, Bamboo Bends rather than breaking.

Conclusion

Bamboo is highly regarded for usage in modern building because of its low cost and environmentally favourable qualities. Compared to traditional building materials, bamboo has benefited such decreased carbon dioxide emissions. Chinese research show that bamboo may absorb carbon dioxide more quickly than conifer or hardwood trees. Because of this, growing bamboo for construction has environmental advantages in addition to those brought about by its replacement of cement and steel. Bamboo is often favoured as reinforcement in members taking less-loaded constructions like public bathrooms, parking lots, and sunshades since bamboo deflects more due to its low density. Despite this, the tensile characteristics of bamboo are very similar to those of steel-reinforced concrete.