Structural performance evaluation of landolphia buchananii concrete beams

Abstract

The study sought to evaluate the performance of Landolphia buchananii concrete beams to establish the potential of Landolphia buchananii as structural reinforcement of concrete in beams. Tensile strength test on Landolphia buchananii was performed while flexural test was done on Landolphia buchananii reinforced beams and compared with steel reinforced concrete beams. Beams of 1100 mm length having 150mm width and 250 mm depth were used in the tests. Varying area of reinforcement of L.buchananii was used for beam specimens made of concrete of average compressive strength of 21.8N/mm2. The steel reinforced beams were reinforced with standard 8mm High strength twisted bar as a tensile reinforcement. The results showed that the ultimate load for the L.buchananii reinforced beams was lower than that of control beams by about 65 % and therefore L. buchananii can only be used under low loading regimes such as in low rise lintel beams with load bearing walls. KEYWORDS: Landolphia buchanani, Tensile strengths, Flexural strength, Ultimate load, Deflection.