Seems like Bamboo strips,kiln dried, milled flat on bottom, and domed on top would give excellant strength to weight property.
Team it up with Carbon fiber, Epoxy resin and Kevalar should make a very strong composite.
Is it being used in planes and boats today?
You do know that bamboo grows as big as 6″ diameter with walls up to 1/2″ thick, right?
Kamakase planes, Great.
In trying to design the most economical aircraft,why do I keep running into designs with a 100% crash rate?
Thanks Wendy, how did Mythbusters work out?
Did the Mythbusters cut the bamboo to 1′x 1/4 strips and build a woven frame, then cover it with a resin and fabric? Or did they use round bamboo?
Bamboo may be expensive because of its novelty value, but it’s sustainability factor is high.
Differant things are strong in differant ways.
Bamboo, even in 1/4” strips has the tensile strength of steel.
Carbon Fiber, graphite, is the stiffest building materiel known.
Kevelar is so hard to tear that it stops bullets.
If composite planes have not surpassed Metal and rivet construction, maybe the designers were sniffing the wrong resin.
I can almost guarantee it.
Stuff is extremely structurally sound.
Man, I was just cutting out an old bamboo bush today and thinking the same thing! Even 1/2 cm pieces that weighed nothing I had to get the loppers for!
I know Howard Hughes built the spruce goose all out of wood, and it did fly well, he was just too nuts to let them use it.
But I think bamboo was used extensively in the contruction of kamikase airplanes, but you’re right it should be used more as a composite base.
I think they did on Mythbusters.
In WW2, Cessna made a plane nicknamed the Bamboo Bomber, but I don’t think it actually used bamboo, not sure though. It was also nicknamed “Rhapsody in Glue”
in earlier it was used widely. and they were held together by wires. but now composite materials which are tougher,stronger than bamboo and also very light in weight is used.
Well some of the earlier homemade hang gliders were made partly out of bamboo.
The Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel once tried this and it did not work too bad. Even though the airplane crashed, it was a very good try and with a bigger engine, it might have actually flown.
As far as being practical, using bamboo to build airplanes is not practical at all. It is just too heavy compared to its size and it is not that strong either. Even if it was resin and fiber reinforced, the material would still not be very economical. Today, all composite built airplanes are still not as good as traditional aluminum skin and rivet construction airplanes.
I thought about that before. You’d think some engineer somewhere tried it already. . . maybe not.
Sniffing the wrong resin, or making bongs out of the bamboo.
Bamboo could also be grown into different shapes, and hold fuel as well.
Good idea, keep going with it, and pass me the matches.