Abstract
A current concern of researchers is to improve the response of compressed earth blocks (CEB), mainly to water attacks by reducing the hydrophilic character of the soil matrix. this work contributes to the formulation of a new soil-based material containing argan nutshell powder (ANS), insofar as the stabilization of compacted soil by cellulosic materials allows to obtain a higher impermeability aspect. Accordingly, a regression of about 32% of the coefficient of capillary absorption has been highlighted with the addition of 2% ANS stabilizer, beyond this percentage, the decrease in absorption becomes less significant.In a vision to identify the non-linear behavior of the compressed earth blocks (CEB) reinforced by the Argan nut shells particles (ANS) influenced by many parameters like the shape, the distribution, and the quantity of the stabilizers, as well as the interactions between both phases: matrix and reinforcement. The use of numerical models seems to be indispensable. Yet, simulations of heterogeneous structures quickly become unaffordable by direct calculations on finite element software. Therefore, a homogenization of the experimental, and numerical macrostructure is performed. Thus, an overall micro-meso-macro approach to modeling the mechanical behavior of CEB/ANS biocomposites has been established. It is mainly based on the notion of the representative elementary volume with two different structures (periodic structure and structure with a poisson distribution). The numerical homogenization results were validated by the Young’s modulus values resulting from the experimental compression test and the corresponding stress–strain curves.
Highlights
The behaviour of earthen building materials with respect to loading remains a very complex issue
The results obtained here validate the isotropy of the compressed earth blocks (CEB)/Argan nut shells particles (ANS) bio-composite, the marked influence is due to the presence of cut particles at the boundaries of the homogenization subdomain and the consideration of their effect on the boundary conditions
This study revealed that the ANS grains are rather spherical, and the bio-composite has good interfacial adhesion between the ANS particles and the CEB matrix
Summary
The behaviour of earthen building materials with respect to loading remains a very complex issue. The choice of organic material was made on the shell of argan tree nuts, presenting up to 26% cellulose and 34% hemicelluloses [3]. This mixture promises a good adhesion with the constituents of the soil and an improvement of its mechanical and thermal characteristics. The interest of the present work is to compare between the two approaches of Young’s modulus homogenization for CEB/ANS composites. The choice of Young’s modulus as an effective property will allow to model our bio-composite as a homogeneous material and to study its mechanical behaviour to static and dynamic loading (Fig. 1 [1]).
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