Abstract
Walls of wet loam, used in earthen houses, generally experience more shrinkage which results in cracks and less compressive strength. This paper presents a technique of producing loam masonry blocks that are compacted in drained state during casting process in order to minimize shrinkage. For this purpose, loam masonry blocks were cast and compacted at a pressure of 6 MPa and then dried in shade by covering them in plastic sheet. The results show that linear shrinkage of 2% occurred which is smaller when compared to un-compacted wet loam walls. This implies that the loam masonry blocks compacted in drained state is expected to perform better than un-compacted wet loam walls.
Highlights
Loam has been used as a material of construction for low cost houses since ancient times till today [1,2,3]
Loam wall masonry units were cast and compacted at 6 MPa and were dried being covered in plastic sheet in shade. When this loam mixture was compacted at the intensity of compaction of 6 MPa, maximum possible dry density was achieved
The results show that linear shrinkage of 2.2% occurred in 150 days
Summary
Loam has been used as a material of construction for low cost houses since ancient times till today [1,2,3]. The cost for quarrying, transportation, handling and processing of loam is generally 5% of that of concrete [4]. The use of loam is environmental friendly as compared to reinforced cement concrete, and baked clay bricks. This is because, emission of carbon dioxide occurs during manufacturing process of cement, and firing of bricks which may adversely affect the environment [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
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