Abstract
AbstractEarthen building materials bear interesting environmental advantages and are the most appropriate to conserve historical earth constructions. To improve mechanical properties, these materials are often stabilized with cement or lime, but the impact of the stabilizers on the water transport properties, which are also critical, has been very rarely evaluated. The researchers have tested four earth-based repair mortars applied on three distinct and representative rammed earth surfaces. Three mortars are based on earth collected from rammed earth buildings in south of Portugal and the fourth mortar is based on a commercial clayish earth. The main objective of the work was over the commercial earth mortar, applied stabilized and not stabilized on the three rammed earth surfaces to repair, to assess the influence of the stabilizers. The other three earth mortars (not stabilized) were applied on each type of rammed earth, representing the repair only made with local materials. The four unstabilized earth...
Highlights
Building materials based on natural earth offer important environmental advantages, which is one of the main reasons for the interest they are raising around the world
It is found that the inflection point between the two segments in the absorption curve, the moment that the capillary fringe reaches the surface in the specimen, occurs firstly in stabilized mortars
Total saturation, which corresponds to total filling of the open porosity, cannot usually be reached under normal suction conditions within a reasonable period of time because a certain volume of air is generally trapped in the pore network, as well as because capillary suction by the macropores may be insignificant (Gonçalves 2007)
Summary
Building materials based on natural earth offer important environmental advantages, which is one of the main reasons for the interest they are raising around the world. Another important motivation is the need to conserve, using compatible materials, the earthen-built heritage, which includes many listed monuments and often whole historical centers. The knowledge on this type of materials still derives mostly from soil science, which has different requirements. In building construction, this knowledge is still essentially practical, which hampers its own advancement and proper adaptation to new circumstances.
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