Below are the results of the first material tests.
Tension
The material appears to be very strong, but not amongst the strongest of its kind. The average tension tension strength is about 135 N/mm2, but the looking at the deformation the material behaves to a different standard. When a straight line is considered in the tension graphs, it shows the E-modulus. The average there is only about 1750 N/mm2, which seems very low compared to the tensile strength.
Bending
Below are the results of the bending test. These test show enormous deflections in the material, but also a great resilience. When loaded with a bending moment bamboo should break at the top when the maximum compression is reached there. Instead it failed on shear. Failure only appears after a relative big force has been applied.
These results are still to be evaluated.
Digital modeling
Although the digital models haven´t changed much, the way the results are shown are different. Also the diameters of the elements has changed, as it seems likely that the material can be get in bigger diameters then initially thought.
Below are some results of a model. Although the results are promising, the strength of the design seems to fail still. The images show the directions of the forces, so new diameters of bundles of bamboo can be designed to take these forces better. So even though the design still fails structurally under a high wind load, the results give a better insight into the design and may lead to a design that won't fail.
Sponsor for prototype
Because the material tests and digital models are still two different approaches to the research, plans are made to make a prototype scale 1:5 to test half of the pavilion and compare the results with the digital model. To accomplish this a lot of bamboo is needed. Thanks to BAMBOE BOUW NEDERLAND this can be accomplished. They will provide the bamboo for the prototype.
Read more about bamboebouwnederland at http://www.bamboebouwnederland.nl/
