Development of a Deployable Bamboo Bridge for Natural Disaster Relief
Marcelo Fonseca Betz1; Daniel Taissum1; Kent A. Harries2
1 PUC-RJ; 2 University of Pittsburgh
doi:10.20906/CPS/CILAMCE2017-0265
Resumo
Natural disasters such as typhoons, storms and earthquakes have severe and unpredictable impacts over cities. In 2011, in Rio de Janeiro, a strong storm caused flood and landslides, damaging more than a hundred bridges having different shapes and sizes, affecting disaster relief materials to be shipped to these areas and victims to be rescued for medical treatment. To enable access to isolated communities, transportable bridges may be used. These bridges are usually dismountable and made of steel, therefore being heavier, having higher costs and demanding qualified professionals for assembly. These disadvantages limit the reach of their benefits, especially in emergencies situations. The deployable bridge proposed in this work is designed to be lightweight, easy-to-build, -transport (even by a helicopter) and -assembly and made of bamboo - a cheap sustainable material - and high-strength steel strands. As a building material, bamboo has been studied for decades and the benefits from its natural composite like structural anatomy are now better known and its complex behavior better understood. In this work, the Guadua Angustifolia bamboo is used and laboratory tests are conducted to determine parameters for creep, compression and bending considering exposure to environmental changes such as dry/wet cycles. Finally, the paper addresses the design of scissor-like bamboo joints, the bridge overall structural behavior and details of the numerical analyzes carried out to obtain the internal forces and deflections during the different unfolding stages.
Palavras-chave: deployable bridge; bamboo; emergency