G8 Initiative: Structural Bamboo Products

该NSF奖授予麻省理工学院(MIT)，资助美国研究人员参与G8研究委员会倡议的一个项目--结构性竹子产品。这是美国国家科学基金会、加拿大国家科学与工程研究理事会(NSERC)、法国国家科学与工程研究理事会(ANR)、德国联邦科学促进会(DFG)、日本科学促进会(JSPS)、俄罗斯基础研究基金会(RFBR)和英国研究理事会(RCUK)之间的试点合作，支持在竞争基础上选出的由至少三个合作伙伴国家的研究人员组成的合作研究项目。这个与麻省理工学院、不列颠哥伦比亚大学(加拿大)和剑桥大学(英国)合作的国际项目为竹子开发绿色建筑材料和建筑规范。中国、印度和巴西的经济迅速扩张，对建材的需求也在不断增长。钢铁和混凝土等传统建筑材料的生产是能源密集型和不可持续的：仅混凝土一项就占全球二氧化碳排放量的5%。竹子是一种生长迅速的可再生建筑材料，在这些国家广泛种植，但在现代建筑中并未充分利用其潜力。它的机械性能类似于木材，但它每公顷产生的质量是传统木材种植园的六倍。因此，结构竹产品类似于胶合板、定向刨花板或胶合木制品，在快速发展的国家有巨大潜力部分取代更多能源密集型材料的使用。该项目的目标是：描述竹子作为一种材料的力学行为；开发将竹片加工成板材和横梁等结构产品的方法；测试结构竹板和梁；建议修改现有的木结构竹制品建筑规范；评估使用结构竹制品建造的建筑物的能源性能和生命周期成本。如果成功，这项研究的结果将有助于工程竹子的知识库和使用，并通过开发一种可再生的、低碳的传统结构部件的替代品来增加建筑产品的可持续性。结构竹产品建筑规范的制定将有助于更有效和更广泛地使用竹子作为建筑材料。了解结构性竹制品的能量投入有助于确定可能节省的领域。该项目还将有助于开发人力资源，培训学生和博士后研究人员。

This NSF award to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) funds U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by the G8 Research Councils Initiative ?Structural Bamboo Products.? This is a pilot collaboration among the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR),and the United Kingdom Research Councils (RCUK), supporting collaborative research projects selected on a competitive basis that are comprised of researchers from at least three of the partner countries. This international project with MIT, the University of British Columbia (Canada) and the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) develops green construction materials and building codes for bamboo. China, India and Brazil have rapidly expanding economies with increasing demand for building materials. The production of conventional construction materials such as steel and concrete is energy intensive and unsustainable: concrete alone accounts for 5% of global CO2 emissions. Bamboo is a fast growing, renewable building material widely cultivated in these countries but not utilized to its full potential in modern construction. Its mechanical properties are similar to wood but it produces up to six times as much mass per hectare as conventional timber plantations. Structural bamboo products, similar to plywood, oriented strand board, or glue-laminated wood products, therefore have enormous potential to partially replace the use of more energy intensive materials in rapidly developing countries. This project aims to: characterize the mechanical behavior of bamboo as a material; develop methods for processing pieces of bamboo into structural products such as panels and beams; test structural bamboo panels and beams; suggest adaptations to existing wood building codes for structural bamboo products; and assess the energy performance and life cycle costs of buildings made using structural bamboo products.If successful, the results of this research will contribute to the knowledge base and use of engineered bamboo and increase the sustainability of building products by the development of a renewable, lower-carbon alternative to conventional structural components. The development of building codes for structural bamboo products will contribute to the more efficient and widespread use of bamboo as a building material. Understanding energy inputs to structural bamboo products could help identify areas of possible savings. The project will also contribute towards the development of human resources, in training students and postdoctoral researchers.