PHYSICO-CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF LOCAL BUILDING MATERIALS IN CHAD

Abstract

This research work is undertaken with the aim of contributing to the development of local building materials in certain provinces of Chad (Abeche, NDjamena and Sarh). Physico-chemical and mechanical characterizations are carried out on samples from these Provinces. It emerges from the geotechnical study that the soils of Abeche and NDjamena are silty-clayey and the respective plasticity indices (PI) of 32% for Abeche and 19.86% for NDjamena as for the soil of Sarh, it corresponds to a loamy soil with a plasticity index of 22.42%. The physico-chemical study made it possible to determine significant quantities of silica respectively 68.56% for Abeche, 65.26% for NDjamena and 76.83% for Sarh. In addition, this analysis also made it possible to determine the organic matter present in the samples of 0.667% for the soil of Abeche, 0.862% for the soil of Ndjamena and 0.412% for that of Sarhrespectively. pH measurements using a pH meter made it possible to find the values ​​for the three soils (6.93 6.56 and 6.65) for Abeche, Ndjamena and Sarh respectively.The mechanical characterization of clay reinforced by cow dung in the various sites studied gave the tensile strengths (1.30 MPa) for the soil of Abeche, (1.14 MPa) for the soil of NDjamena and (1.12MPa) for the soil of Sarh respectively, and in compression, the soil of Abeche gave (2.51MPa), that of NDjamena gave (2.37MPa) and the soil of Sarh gave (2.30MPa).It appears from the studies carried out that the soils of the different Provinces are suitable for their valorization in construction.