Hygrothermal performance comparison study on bamboo and timber construction in Asia-Pacific bamboo areas

The hygrothermal feasibility is one of the premises for applying bamboo in building industry. This study carries out material property tests on typical bamboo variants and hygrothermal performance simulation on bamboo exterior wall constructions in the Asia-Pacific bamboo areas, and makes comparison with reference timber units in parallel. Results show that, except for bamboo particleboard, the rest bamboo variants have overall lower hygric properties and higher thermal properties, and some indicators of bamboo scrimber and bamboo mat board exceed the property range of the reference timber. The construction groups with bamboo particleboard as interior or (thickened) interlayer boards show overall better hygrothermal performance than those with timber units given the same construction and space size. For example, the annual total cooling demand and cooling peak are reduced by up to 14%, respectively. The combination of bamboo mat board and bamboo particleboard in bamboo groups shows better performance in most indicators than the combination of OSB and Spruce in timber groups. Thanks to the advantages of lower cost and technical requirement, bamboo particleboard and bamboo mat board have the potential to be local climate adaptive building materials and are competitive compared with the corresponding timber products. The multi-level comparison between bamboo and timber units in this study demonstrates the feasibility to ‘substitute timber with bamboo’ in terms of hygrothermal performance, identifies the dominant bamboo variants and offers suggestions on its market competition with timber.