Zone4info - Soil as building material

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Zone4info - Soil as building material

Soil as building material

Posted by Ackerley Acton Mon at 9:11 AM The use of soil as a building material is as old as humanity itself and sun-dried bricks were used in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was used in the south western United States by the cliff-dwellers before the arrival of Europeans. In Malawi the use of sun-dried clay building blocks is fairly common and the traditional practice of extending the thatched roof on all sides to provide an eave-overhang of about a metre is a pragmatic solution to the problem of rain-induced erosion of the clay-block walls. It incidentally also improves the thermal performance of the building as it shades the walls from the tropical sun. In southern Africa sun-dried clay bricks or cement stabilised pis-de-terre (rammed earth) appear to have been stigmatised as unacceptably primitive materials whereas in parts of the south western United States (Arizona and New Mexico) adobe houses are sought after, mainly because of the excellent thermal comfort adobe construction provides. However, research into the use of clay as a building material has been widespread and there are a number of initiatives aimed at re-establishing the use of clay as a building material (McHenry, 1984, United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, 1984, Roberg, 1993). The problem of water resistance is likely to restrict the use of unfired clay building materials seriously and it provided the motivation for the research that was undertaken by the Department of Building and Quantity Surveying of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Cement-stabilised soil masonry units The concept of stabilisation of soil by the addition of cement (Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) or blends of OPC and Pulverised Fuel Ash (PFA)) is readily accepted for the construction of base courses for roads but has hiterto not been widely applied to the production of masonry units (Ballantine and Rossouw, 1972). Roberg (1993)investigated the use of stabilised soil in a rammed earth type construction technique. He selected a variety of soils from around Johannesburg and characterised them in terms of their physicalproperties, using the full range of soil science techniques. On the basis of the known properties he then determined the optimum moisture content to ensure maximum compaction and the optimum soil to hydraulic cement (ie 85% OPC/15% PFA known as PC15PFA) ratio for each of the soils. These mixtures were then manually tamped into wooden formwork to create walls. His findings were that relatively low cement to soil ratios (6% to 8%) and water contents of between 12% and 14% produced rammed earth walls that were strong enough for single storey buildings and resistant to a severe water-erosion test (Middleton, 1987). There are at least two

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commercial concerns in South Africa that are marketing devices for the manufacture of building blocks composed of stabilised earth. The basic concept was well described by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in the UK (Building Research Establishment, 1987). The production of the blocks may be carried out manually using a simple device such as BREs BREPAK or by motor-driven hydraulically operated moulding machines of varying degrees of sophistication. At present the degree of stabilisation (by the addition of cement or lime) is a matter of experience. It would make the systems more acceptable to a sceptical community and to those financing the housing if it could be demonstrated that the appropriate level of stabilisation for different soils falls within a relatively broad range and is therefore not critical to the performance of blocks made of stabilised soil.

Reference:Ravindra_Dhir,_Michael_McCarthy Prepared By: zone4info.com Team.

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10/2/2012 3:36 PM