Flexural and impact resistance of bamboo/fiber reinforced cementitious laminates

This paper reports the flexural and impact behavior of bamboo/fiber reinforced cementitious laminates. The laminate considered in this study is a sandwich plate combined with reformed bamboo plate and extruded fiber reinforced cementitious (FRC) sheet. Innovated from the raw bamboo, reformed bamboo has high tensile strength and high strength to weight ratio. It can not only remarkably strengthen the FRC sheet but also reduce the total weight of the laminate. During the tests, flexural strength, impact load, deflection and duration values were measured. Test results show that the flexural strength values for the laminates can be improved to greater than 90 MPa, while the impact resistance was increased more than 10 times for the laminates when compared with the FRC sheet only.