Abstract
Earth bricks are a traditional eco-friendly construction material. In this study, harbor-dredged sediments were used along with hemp shiv to develop a brick manufacturing procedure and compaction techniques to produce durable earth bricks for the valorization of waste hemp shiv and dredged sediments. Prismatic specimens of size 4 × 4 × 16 cm3 were manufactured with Dunkirk sediments after analyzing their suitability for earth bricks according to the French standard for flexural strength test to observe the indirect tensile strength and impact of the compaction techniques on the strength of bricks. Crude bricks were manufactured with varying hemp shiv content from 0% to 5% by mass. Compaction techniques such as dynamic compaction, static compaction, and tamping were applied. The effect of hemp shiv content and compaction techniques was evaluated with a flexural strength test and the distribution of fibers in bricks. Grain size analysis of sediments with French and Spanish standards shows that the sediments granulometry is suitable for earth bricks. The flexural strength testing of bricks indicates that bricks with saturated hemp shiv have higher flexural strength. Earth bricks have maximum strength with dynamic compaction with 1% hemp shiv, which satisfies the adobe bricks tensile strength requirements that vary from 0.012 to 0.025 MPa (NZS 4298, 1998; NORMA E.080 (2017).
Highlights
Earth bricks are a low-cost building material and are widely used in developing countries
For laboratory-scale testing, we have considered a 50 kg load for static compaction due to the better results and ease of handling after several trials between 10 and 50 kg load
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Summary
Earth bricks are a low-cost building material and are widely used in developing countries. Thermally stable construction materials such as earth bricks with the minimum use of energy during their manufacturing process are helpful to limit environmental concerns. Sediments and fibers are usually mixed with optimum molding moisture content to make crude bricks [23,24,25]. Cracks development, and a decrease in the tensile and compressive strength are related complications with a higher amount of molding moisture content [11,28]. The objective concerns the implementation of preparation under a controlled procedure to manufacture waste-fiber-based reinforced raw earth bricks to recycle waste-dredged sediments from Dunkirk port along with hemp shiv after analyzing their characteristics and suitability for bricks. The minimum use of energy and non-renewable resources for making crude bricks from dredged sediments makes them suitable as an ecological construction material
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