Bending properties of bamboo scrimber with holes in different sizes and positions

To the requirements of introducing holes for the structural applications of bamboo scrimber, the bending properties of bamboo scrimber, which used Moso bamboo as the raw material, with holes in different sizes at different positions were studied and compared. The results indicated that drilling holes cause the decrease of the bending properties and the larger size for drilling holes causes the lower bending properties. The positions for drilling holes cause the change of the stress distribution and then decrease the bending properties. According to the comparisons of different bamboo tested samples, two basic failure modes were proposed, one is the split along the direction of bamboo fibers around the holes caused by shear stress, and the other is the fracture at the bottom of the tested samples by bending stress.