Thermal and flexural behaviour of laminated bamboo exposed to severe radiant heating

Research was undertaken to begin to develop an engineering understanding of the response of laminated bamboo to fire, with a view to eventually enabling its use in load-bearing applications in buildings. A series of cone calorimeter experiments were undertaken on laminated bamboo samples, from which a critical heat flux for ignition of around 14-15 kW/m , a thermal inertia of between 3.2-3.7×10 W s/m K were determined. Charring rate increased from 0.31 mm/min at 14 kW/m to 1.04 mm/min at 50 kW/m . These values are lower than typical for softwood timber, likely due primarily to the higher density of laminated bamboo. Thermal conductivity measurements were also undertaken, indicating that the thermal conductivity of laminated bamboo is approximately double that of softwood timber. Subsequent heated structural experiments showed that despite demonstrating lower charring rates, the propagation of a heated layer - and subsequent loss of mechanical properties - had a larger impact on laminated bamboo beams than in comparable experiments on cross-laminated softwood timber. This can be partly attributed to the higher thermal conductivity of bamboo as compared to softwood timber