Bamboo reinforced concrete is expected to be an alternative to steel reinforced concrete as a building material. Steel, when used for construction activities, is energy intensive and causes pollution. In this context, the use of bamboo, which is a fast growing, affordable and ecologically friendly solution; especially in a tropical country like India, is being considered as a suitable material for structural applications. It is potentially superior to steel in terms of its weight to strength ratio. However, the bond strength is a major concern for the bamboo to be a reinforcement in structural composites. The goal of this paper is to investigate the bonding properties of a newly developed bamboo-reinforcement composite in concrete, through pull-out tests. Various coatings are applied to the bamboo to determine the different bonding behaviours between the concrete and newly developed BRC. To improve the bonding at interfacial of bamboo concrete composite; easily applicable, adoptable and economical technology have been developed. The results of this study demonstrate that the bamboo-reinforcement composite develops adequate bonding with the concrete matrix with the hope that the newly developed material could contribute, on a large scale, to sustainable development.

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Retaining wall is an important structure of any infrastructure. Due to research and advancement in Civil Engineering use of new types of retaining walls are very much common in recent construction scenario. Gabion retaining wall is one of the new types of retaining wall. Gabion wall consists of stone filled metallic mesh boxes which are tied together to form a shape of retaining wall. Gabion wall is very much common nowadays due to its simplicity, speedy construction, and flexibility. In spite of massive structure of Gabion wall there are possibilities of Gabion wall failures. Literature review shows that very less information is reported on failures of Gabion wall. This paper focused on defects/ failures observed in existing Gabion walls. Total 11 sites of existing Gabion walls around Pune district (India) are considered for the study. Investigations of these sites are made to identify various defects/failures with possible reasons. Remedial measures to overcome these deflect/failures are also suggested. Such a study will be helpful not only to avoid failures but also to provide a basis for possible research and modifications in the Gabion wall

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