BORASSUS AETHIOPUM OF BENIN USED AS VEGETABLE REINFORCEMENT IN CONCRETE: CHARACTERIZATION OF THE OVERLAPPING ZONE

The present article studies the overlapping zone between two reinforcements of Borassus aethiopum. To characterize this zone, two types of overlapping were experimented to know, the cover with Borassus aethiopum pieces and the one with metallic plates of which the binder is the epoxy glue. It turns out that the maximal length of covering to be realized between two Borassus aethiopum reinforcements is 500 mm. This covering length does not depend on substrata which served to achieve the overlapping but rather of the shearing resistance of the glue joint. Furthermore, during the test, Borassus aethiopum plates damage after the break of test tubes while the metallic pieces still remain intact. This reveals the advantage of the metallic plates with regard to Borassus aethiopum pieces. The behaviour of the interface of both materials is elasto-fragile.