A Pilot Study on Cross-Laminated Bamboo and Timber Beams

This technical note reports the results from a pilot testing program on the flexural behavior of cross-laminated bamboo and timber (CLBT) beams. The testing parameters include the combinations of two types of timbers, spruce-pine-fir (SPF) and poplar, as inner layers as well as two types of glubam, thin- and thick-strip glubam, as surface layers. The simply supported specimens were tested in flatwise and sidewise setups with three-point loading. The test results show that the CLBT beams exhibited an elastobrittle behavior and had adequate load-carrying capacity. The bending stiffness and capacity calculated from the test results were between those calculated by the two prediction models, i.e., a relative slip assumption model and a plane assumption model.