STRUCTURAL EFFECTS OF STEEL LAMINATION MECHANISM ON AFRICAN BIRCH (Anogeissus Leiocarpus) TIMBER BEAMS

Civil Engineering

Timber is a renewable, environmental friendly and economical structural material. However, it has a lower mechanical performance when compared with reinforced concrete. It has natural defects which causes brittleness. Thus, limits its usage in structural construction. This paper investigates the structural effects of steel reinforcement on African birch timber beams. The experimental test was a three point bending in a simply supported setup with a span of 0.7m. The samples were divided into three (3) groups: unreinforced, plate-reinforced and rod-reinforced timber beams with three (3) samples each. Each sample was loaded and tested until flexural failure occurred using universal testing machine (UTM). The reinforcement percentage ratio of plate-reinforced and rod-reinforced timber beams were 3.75% and 2.5% respectively as compared with unreinforced timber beam. Excluding an odd unreinforced timber beam sample labelled B3, the experimental test show that plate-reinforced beams and rod-reinforced beams increase in moment by 21.3% and 145.3% respectively; increase in deflection by 17.5% and 23.0% respectively, and increased in stiffness by -18.9% and 139.8% respectively. It was observed that bonding imperfections and grooving significantly affected the performance of the reinforced beams especially in the deflection and stiffness. The variability in structural performance of reinforced timber beams is lower than unreinforced timber beams in moment and deflection, except for stiffness. The variation in stiffness for the cases was due to bonding imperfection of the steel to timber at the elastic phase of the reinforced timber beams.

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