Building of small bamboo shelter : joint design and construction

Abstract

The world population is growing rapidly, especially in the developing countries. 60 to 70 per cent of South East Asia comprises of developing countries. The main problem that these developing countries faced is the rapidly increasing population that has already resulted in shortages of proper housing. In addition, due to financial constrains people in these developing countries are unable to afford proper housing. Therefore in this project, the aim is to utilize bamboo as a building material for the construction of housings in developing countries as well as to construct shelters in disaster struck areas.

The objectives of this project are to design for joints based on the architectural plans done by the previous Final Year Project. In addition, the designed joints have to be simple and must have the ability to be structurally adequate for normal loadings and able to withstand earthquake conditions. Finally, the choices of materials to couple with bamboo have to be reasonably priced, easily available and easy to construct so as to develop a rapid deployable bamboo house.

Bamboo are the fast growing woody plant in the world, this unique feature has given the people in the disaster struck areas a chance to use bamboo as the construction material for their temporary housing which will be much more sturdier and provide a healthier living conditions. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on the use bamboo as a building material around the world. Therefore, in this project, besides designing economical joint, strength tests will also be conducted on the joints designed to determine its maximum strength and resistance.

Working as group of 4, joint tests for T and X-joints will be conducted, however only the design and strength test result of X joint with galvanized plate will be discussed in this report. This report will also emphasize on the fabrication and testing procedures as well as providing an analysis of the test results. Furthermore, types of failure and the factors that affect the joint strength will be highlighted, providing the reader with a better understanding in the behaviour of the joint.