Bamboo Bridge

[John Sillis]

Hello,

I am an engineering student from Australia and I am a member of a workgroup designing a bamboo bridge.

Our target waterway width is 20m and one of our ideas is to bend bamboo into a bow shape to support a bamboo walkway.

Our bridge is designed for use in the Mekong Delta and we are looking for an easy way to form bamboo stalks 50mm in dia to a radius of 20m.

Is this possible? What is the easiest way to bend bamboo with minimal infrastructure?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Scott]

Hi John,

You have probably seen this video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7914646950791304015

There is also some other stuff on youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=iV-CE3hW4ss

I'm sure everyone here would be interested to learn more about your project.

[John Sillis]

Gday Scott,

Thanks for your reply. We are looking at creating a triangular module section that will be able to be joined together for different river widths. The module will be joined using a connection piece that slides inside the end of the bamboo stalks. Do you now what is the most common species of bamboo in cambodia?

[Aran21]

Hello John,

in bigger structures, like bridges or building elements, the bending may occur within the bending limits of a culm, not pre-heated, justs its fibrous and tensile ability of allowing a determinated bend. The ratio varies according to the section diameter, and the type of bamboo, as well as length . Long, bent , culms, give an extra strengnth to a structure, but are not easy to heat evenly ; natural "cold" bending is eased by longer culms, and smaller section; it may be worthy, for instance, to use 2 pieces of 4 inches diamenter, as twin bent beams, instead of 1 piece of 7 inches, too hard to bend.