Assessment of Flexural Strengths and Flexural Load Bearing Capacity of Bamboo Grids-Reinforced Soil Beam

Abstract

Soil improvement techniques have become a major solution to soil related problems. Thus, this paper aims to determine the flexural strengths and flexural load bearing capacity of bamboo grids-reinforced soil beam using standard methods and experiments at 7 days, 14 days, 21 days and, 28 days curing ages. The findings of this study showed that the mean flexural strength of uniaxial bamboo grid reinforced soil beam gave 3.50 N/mm² while flexural strength of biaxial bamboo grid reinforced soil beam gave 3.86 N/mm². The result indicates that biaxial bamboo reinforced soil beam has the tendency to maximize the flexural load bearing capacity of soil beams when compared with the use of uniaxial bamboo grid orientation technique. This paper, therefore, recommends that flexural strength and flexural load bearing capacity of inorganic clays of low to medium plasticity should be improved using biaxial grid type of bamboo grid orientation technique.