Abstract
The adobe is an efficient construction material in several aspects like thermal comfort, sustainable, lower energy cost, simplicity of production and execution. However challenges such as water absorption, capillarity, and compressive strength should be investigated to improve its physical-mechanical properties. Synthetic Termite Saliva (STS) is an excellent stabilizer of high cohesive and hydrophobic power. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of STS incorporation in the adobe by analyzing its physical-mechanical and thermal characteristics. Five treatments were studied: 0 (control); 0.1; 0.2; 0.4 and 0.8% STS by mass. Evaluated as bulk density, linear shrinkage, capillarity, water absorption, thermal conductivity and compressive strength according to NTE E0.80 testing a new methodology. The linear shrinkage decreases from 2.7 to 1.91 cm with 0.4%. Capillarity decreases with increasing STS addition. The water absorption decreased from 12.03 to 6.31% using 0.4% and its mass loss reduced from 779 to 19 grams. The thermal conductivity showed no differences. The compressive strength has been reduced, but acceptable with NTE E.080. The stabilization of the adobe using the STS showed an improvement in the physical properties, mainly to the hydrophobic power.
Highlights
There are numerous materials and products developed for the construction industry
The level of the improvements in the physical properties of adobe related to water contact are significantly higher, solving the problem of this issue
The use of Synthetic termite saliva" (STS) did not influence the thermal conductivity in adobes
Summary
There are numerous materials and products developed for the construction industry. All of these products have an aggregate energy value in production because they use natural resources, raw materials, machinery and human labor. Adobe is a material produced using soil and water; when necessary, fibers or other stabilizers are added (Galán-Marín et al, 2010). Due to its raw material being soil and due to the nonoccurrence of sintering in its production, adobe is considered a sustainable construction material (Corrêa et al, 2015) that has low energy costs (Shukla et al, 2009; Gandia et al, 2018). Because adobe is a material that is most often handcrafted, its mechanical properties are quite variable (Illampas et al, 2014)
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