The use of bamboo and autoclaved aerated concrete block to reduce the weight of precast concrete beam

The lightweight structure is important for precast beam to reduce the dead loads and the handling loads. Steel reinforcement substitution with bamboo can be used to reduce the weight. For reinforced concrete beams, the concrete in tension side does not need a high compressive strength, hence it can be replaced with Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Block. Purpose of this research is to study the strength and density behavior of the bamboo reinforced concrete beam substitute with the AAC block in tension area. The research variable was the portion of the AAC block height to the total beam height. The beam dimension was 16 cm × 20 cm × 200 cm. The concrete strength varied between 20 MPa and 25 MPa. Two variation of AAC block height were 6.5 cm and 8 cm. The beam tested in simple supported and two point loads. The control beam was made without AAC block, and 20 MPa concrete strength, and was used to compare the strength and the density of the beam. The experiment results show that the density of the beam varied between 1900 kg /m3 and 2000 kg/m3 and no significant decrease of the strength.