Engr. Ezenwa Okite
INVITATION TO OFFER MY PROFESSIONAL VIEWS ON THE PROPOSAL FOR THE USE OF BAMBOO AS SUBSTITUTE FOR STEEL RODS IN REINFORCED CONCRETE STRUCTURES
Today, the 23rd of October,2021 is my birthday. I woke up to be confronted with an invitation from the last of our mother, my brother, Barrister Okite I Okite, a lawyer of sixteen years standing, as a birthday gift, to lead a discussion, tagging other engineers and offer my views on a trending proposal by a senior lecturer, Dr Efe Ikponmwosa, associating himself with his mentors and my respected friends, Profs MA Salau and Funso Falade, proposing that our locally available bamboo can be a substitute for steel rods in reinforced concrete beams, lintels and columns in bungalows. He invited my views perhaps believing I have spent more than half of my life time in the education , practice and now teaching of Engineering.
Let me concede that engineers, especially Civil and Structural, are educated and trained to understand the phenomenology of the failure of materials and structures, enabling them to design and supervise it’s construction. There is collapse when gradual failure suddenly attains its ultimate limit, with parts totally disintegrating from positions, as restorative reactions become minimized or zero, hence the crash! It is upon this background that we should realize that every material availing strength in structures, including bamboo, has its ultimate limit of strength.
As far as I am concerned, the flexural strength of bamboo(i.e its strength in bending) to which beams are principally subjected to, though considerable is not limitless. In fact, the limit cannot qualify it for use where high strength is needed as in storey buildings. It can serve well in lintels, columns and beams up to 4 metres (13 ft 4 inches); of bungalows only. Recall that our fore fathers used it for our locally built houses successfully. Again, as far as I am concerned this remains an ongoing research, and does not warrant, calling on pedestrian Nigerians with high propensity for abuse of standards and materials on local sites to use it as substitutes for steel unsupervised. Hence it is not yet Uhuru to teach or practice it to sustain high loads. I have not yet seen details of their study or tables of flexural strength limits. I caution on its effectiveness given its “organicity” and biogradability, hence not as durable as steel. Application for bungalows with its savings of about 20 percent, cannot be extended to high rise structures.
Engr. Okite is a lecturer at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU)
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