7. Conclusion
This paper has described a scientific approach for developing a new type of bamboo reinforced prefabricated wall panel system along with the feasibility study as compared to masonry walls. The proposed wall panel system is considerably cheap, lightweight and energy efficient than the traditional brick walls. The advantages of the proposed wall panel system are: • It reduces the dead weight of walls by 56% as compared to brick wall (5 in. thick). Therefore use of these panels can improve the performance of structure during earthquake. • It can considerably reduce the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when mass scale production can be adopted for proposed panels, as it will reduce the consumption of environmental degrading conventional building materials such as steel, cement and bricks. • Proposed wall system doesn’t require sophisticated technical skills, only jointing at site is required. • Quality control is much easier as prefabricated panels can be manufactured at casting yard. • The cost of panel is about 40% cheaper than conventional single wall bricks (5 in. thick) which could be further reduced on mass manufacturing of such panels and by utilizing cheap treatment and connection methods. • Proposed wall system has high strength and flexibility compared to masonry walls. It was observed that the proposed wall system can considerably reduce the harmful greenhouse gases. However, limited codal guidelines for bamboo as an engineering material, is hindering the mass application of these wall panels. Such type of structures can pave the way for sustainable infrastructure especially for low cost housing segment. However further investigation of parameters such as fire resistance, structural behavior under various loading, water absorption and seismic response etc needs to be studied extensively.