Estudio de las propiedades físicas de la caña guadua y su aplicación como refuerzo en la construcción de estructuras de adobe

Abstract

This study is referred to the application of bamboo as a structural reinforcement in the construction with adobe, having as main focus the existence of a strong need of search and use of new economical, safe and environment friendly construction materials, given the current situation, talking in environmental terms. With the objective of accomplishing this, two adobe walls were built, one reinforced with bamboo and other without any reinforcement, with physical characteristics that are showed later in this thesis. Those walls were essayed to cyclic lateral load in order to get capacity curves, displacement ductility, Young Modulus, stress distribution, dissipated energy, equivalent damping ratio, secant stiffness and then they were compared using the results. In addition, a mathematical model was stablished by the use of Finite Elements Theory for the lineal range. The results obtained showed that the bamboo reinforced adobe wall has a substantially better structural behavior, increasing its lateral load capacity in approximately 400%, avoiding total collapse of the structure accomplishing a higher absorption and better distribution of the energy in the whole wall.