Digitisation of bamboo culms for structural applications

Abstract

Reducing the negative environmental impact caused by the intensive manufacturing of industrialised building materials and components requires the adoption of alternative sustainable resources and the development of appropriate procedures to encourage their use in the construction industry. Bamboo in its natural form (culms or poles) is one of the most promising nonconventional sustainable building materials, endemic to most developing countries where high demand for building materials will be driven by the large-scale urbanisation predicted for the coming decades. The use of bamboo poles as structural elements poses multiple challenges starting with the need to define their inherent geometric variability to enable their inclusion in formal design and fabrication processes. This paper describes the details of a non-destructive 3D scanning and modelling workflow developed to capture and process the relevant digital information that describes the geometric properties of bamboo poles. The digitisation of over 230 poles with a combined length of 500 m was carried out confirming the accuracy of the generated geometric models. Also, a small reciprocal frame prototype was successfully developed based on the geometric information extracted from a 3D model of the structure incorporating the digitised poles. The effective digitisation of bamboo poles and its integration into modern platforms can provide the construction industry with the necessary support to design, build and maintain high quality structures that incorporate this sustainable and renewable resource.

Non-linear behaviour and failure mechanism of bamboo poles in bending

“…All bamboo poles were digitised following the process described in [35] and [4] using the setup shown in Fig. 1.…”

“…The results of a typical pole are used throughout this work to illustrate the general behaviour of bamboo poles in bending, the practical challenges in implementing a traditional third-point bending test and the effects of idealising their organic geometry as straight prismatic circular tubes. This approach deliberately deviates from the traditional statistical characterisation of bamboo to highlight the potential of modern digitisation techniques [35] and parametric numerical analyses as the basis of an alternative approach [36] to effectively quantify, model and study the structural behaviour of bamboo recognising each pole as a unique structural element.…”

Effect of high-temperature saturated steam treatment on the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of moso bamboo

“…However, the bamboo-based panel especially bamboo scrimber has lost the natural appearance of bamboo. Thus, bamboo in its natural form (culms or poles) is becoming one of the promising non-conventional sustainable building materials for the coming decades [7]. In comparison with bamboo-based panels, the pristine bamboo culm is prone to be affected by moisture, ultraviolet light, and fungi, which may restrict its application for outdoor use.…”

Exploring the mechanical and morphological rationality of tree branch structure based on 3D point cloud analysis and the finite element method

“…With emerging developments in computational technologies, the speed and accuracy of 3D laser scanners to obtain detailed point cloud data have improved 13 . 3D reconstruction of the skeletal structure of bare trees (i.e., lacking foliage) from 3D scans has been well studied using skeletonization techniques 14 – 16 , which can recover 3D structures representing actual tree shapes.…”