Mechanical properties of sustainable soil blocks stabilised with rice husk ash, cement and lime

Abstract

The provision of good quality housing is recognised as an important responsibility for welfare of common public in any country. To achieve this, building materials from natural resources are often used. The commercial exploitation of these resources often leads to various environmental problems. Hence, development of an alternative building material is of immense benefit to minimise the impact on the environment. Soil can be used for the construction of walls in many ways. However, there are few undesirable properties such as loss of strength when saturated with water, erosion due to wind or rain and poor dimensional stability. These drawbacks can be eliminated significantly by stabilising the soil with cementitious materials. Several researchers are presently looking for newer options of manufacturing stabilised compressed blocks by partially substituting cement with pozzolanic materials, which are also environmentally friendly. In this context, a comparative study is carried out on compressed stabilised soil block (CSSB) made with lime, rice husk ash (RHA) and Portland pozzolana cement. This paper discusses physical and mechanical properties of the CSSBs. Due to the use of RHA, it is observed that the final cost of the CSSB is getting reduced and also the environmental advantage of utilising the RHA may further improve the sustainability of masonry brick production.