Utilization of Bamboo as a Structural Material

抄録

  Natural materials have been reviewed from the perspective of conservation of Earth’s environment. Bamboo attracts interest not only in Japan but also overseas because bamboo presents many advantages in application as a building material. It is cheap, light, and fast-growing, with excellent tensile and compression strength. For increasing demand of bamboo, its utilization for buildings is necessary. For that purpose, we investigated efficient drying conditions for bamboo without cracks for increasing the durability of bamboo as a structural material through some experimentation. We also proposed a new construction method for building a dome. The main characteristic is that the dome is configured not with strip members but with round straight members having no special joint parts.