Characteristics of Different Masonry Units Manufactured with Stabilized Earth

Abstract

Although there are many ancient buildings constructed with earth as a walling material, bricks and cement blocks have overtaken this material in the recent history. With the sustainable concepts being actively promoted in the construction industry, stabilized earth is becoming popular in many parts of the world due to various environmental problems associated with the use of conventional materials such as clay mining, sand mining, etc. Some recent advances in manually and hydraulically operated machines have allowed the manufacturing of compressed stabilized earth bricks and blocks (CSEB) which could easily compete with burnt clay bricks and cement sand blocks. These blocks have a distinct advantage of use of machines for manufacturing which allow a greater freedom for controlling the quality. Since different sizes and types of stabilized earth blocks are available, it is important to investigate the performance of those as walling materials. Therefore, an experimental study was conducted to assess the performance of stabilized earth bricks manufactured to the standard brick size, interlocking solid blocks, interlocking hollow blocks and plain solid blocks. In this study, the stabilized earth brick walls, which were constructed with different bond patterns such as Flemish, English and Stretcher, have been investigated for the performance in load carrying capacity and load deformation characteristics. The bricks were bonded with cement sand mortar. Both hollow and plain interlocking blocks were bonded with a soil cement paste. The performance of different CSEB units was compared in the study and also it was compared with that of burnt clay bricks and cement sand blocks. The results revealed that burnt clay brick and stabilized earth brick wall panels behave in a similar manner. However, different bond patterns have shown some variations in failure mechanisms.