Local buckling resistance of bamboo scrimber plates in compression

This paper describes experimental and theoretical investigations on behaviour of short bamboo scrimber box columns under compression. In the experimental programme, six groups of short columns with different width-to-thickness ratios of plates were tested and the load capacity and failure modes of the columns were determined. Test results indicated that when the width-to-thickness ratio of plates was less than or equal to 10, box columns exhibited compression failure and the ultimate compressive strength of bamboo scrimber was reached at failure. However, local buckling of bamboo scrimber plates was observed instead of compression failure once the width-to-thickness ratio of plates exceeded 11, and the ultimate compressive stress decreased with increasing width-to-thickness ratio. Based on the experimental data, theoretical analyses were also performed by considering the nonlinear stress-strain relationship to quantify the buckling stress of bamboo scrimber plates with four simply-supported edges. Comparisons between experimental and theoretical results suggest that when the theoretical equation yields reasonably good estimations of the local buckling stress of columns with the width-to-thickness ratio of plates greater than 10.