A Comparative Study to Assess the Sustainability of Bamboo Reinforced Concrete over Conventional Steel Reinforced Concrete

Abstract

Amongst various sustainable building materials, bamboo reinforced concrete has come into concern as a potential substitute for steel-reinforced concrete. This has drawn attention due to some major drawbacks of steel in reinforced concrete including elevated cost, high energy consumption, increased emission of carbon, etc. Bamboo is a rapidly renewable material that has displayed outstanding mechanical properties which are adequate to replace steel in reinforced concrete. In the present context, in addition to its structural performance, it is of vital importance to evaluate the sustainability of bamboo reinforced concrete over conventional reinforced concrete. In this work, the structural capacity of replacing steel with bamboo in different structural elements was analytically determined. Subsequently, a comprehensive work study-based analysis was executed to compare the sustainability of a bamboo reinforced concrete beam element with a conventional steel-reinforced concrete beam element in terms of their embodied carbon and cost. Results of this study justify the possibility of promoting bamboo as a potentially sustainable alternative to steel in reinforced concrete as bamboo reinforced concrete displays drastically reduced sustainability indices for embodied carbon, and cost while maintaining adequate structural capacities.