Abstract
Unstabilized Rammed Earth (RE) has been historically used to form earth walls or blocks. Recently RE has resurfaced as a sustainable building material with little attention given to it in building codes and manuals. The percentage of the fine-grained fraction in RE is one of the most important factors affecting its behavior. Such percentage has been selected in practice based on experience and rules of thumb, not on a scientific rationale. This research examines the influence of the amount and type of fine particles on the hydraulic conductivity and water retention characteristics of compacted soils using a bench scale centrifuge. A Durner curve (1994) was applied to describe the water retention curve as it allows portraying a bimodal pore structure. In an attempt to understand the basis on which fines contribute to the strength of RE, two different types of fine grained soils were used in the mixtures, plastic fines (PF) and non-plastic fines (NPF). Each type was divided further into different mixtures, each with different percentages of fines. The influence of the fines’ percentage was tested using different methods and by using saturated and unsaturated samples of the soil mixtures. Larger suction developed in samples with PF in comparison to those with NPF. Suction increased as the percentage of fines in the mixture increased. Such effect is more pronounced in samples with PF.
Published Version
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