Bamboo – Abundant and Renewable
In my past life I studied lots of different mixes for concrete and reinforcement. Good concrete is easy to make but without some sort of reinforcement it lacks tensile strength. Concrete by itself can’t make a beam or span a distance. Beams want to deflect under load which causes the bottom of a beam to stretch (slightly). Concrete doesn’t stretch – instead it cracks. In Haiti a lot of structures failed due to a lack of proper reinforcing.
Bamboo grows naturally in Haiti (I checked). Its cheaper than steel and when used in concrete it stores carbon. Bamboo can be used as reinforcement for concrete in a manner similar to how re-bar is used now, or in some cases it can be chopped and added to a concrete mix to give seismic strength.
A great paper on Bamboo Reinforced Concrete: Bamboo Reinforced Concrete
Photo: Darwin Bell via Flickr
