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The use of small diameter whole-culm (bars) and/or split bamboo (a.k.a. splints or strips) has often been proposed as an alternative to reinforcing steel in reinforced concrete. The motivation for such replacement is typically cost and the drive to find more sustainable alternatives in the construction industry. Although bamboo is a material with extraordinary mechanical properties, this paper will summarise the reasons that for most load-bearing applications, bamboo-reinforced concrete is an ill-considered concept: having significant durability, strength and stiffness issues. Additionally, it is argued that bamboo-reinforced concrete does not possess the environmentally friendly credentials often attributed to it. Finally, the authors identify applications in which bamboo reinforcement may prove an acceptable alternative to steel provided durability concerns can be addressed. 

This paper provides an overview of the activities of a US National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project Full-Culm Bamboo as a Full-Fledged Engineering Material (Project Numbers NSF CMMI 1634739 and 1634828). The project, funded in 2017, is a collaboration between teams at the Universities of Pittsburgh and Puerto Rico Mayaguez. 

Materials informatics is widely acknowledged as a means of accelerating the rate of new materials discovery and material development. Such an approach will require widespread use of data driven methodologies and it is anticipated that downstream stakeholders, particularly industry, will be heavily involved in providing the required resources. This paper will propose workflows that illustrate how data driven methods could reasonably be applied to the processing-structure-properties relationships of locally sourced non-conventional materials. It is anticipated that simple material tests and imaging techniques will provide sufficient digital information for data driven approaches at relatively low cost. This utility will be illustrated using the example of bamboo and the levels of structure observable using widely available digital phone cameras. Finally, the possible role of the NOCMAT community in facilitating materials informatics will be considered.