Quality Assessment of Commercially Produced Sandcrete Blocks in Okitipupa Local Government Area, Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The frequent collapse of buildings in Nigeria has necessitated carrying out a quality check not only on the structural design of these buildings but also on the materials used in their construction. Sandcrete blocks are used as a walling unit mostly because they are cheap and fast to produce. They can also be use as either load-bearing or non-load bearing purpose. Hence, this paper gives an in-depth quality assessment of sandcrete blocks commercially produced in Okitipupa Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria. Six sandcrete block producing locations were visited within the local government and both six inches (6?) blocks (450×150×225 mm) and nine inches (9?) blocks (450×225×225 mm) from each location were randomly collected, together with their soil samples. Twenty-four control samples of 6? and 9? sandcrete blocks were also produced in accordance with the Nigerian Industrial Standard (NIS 87: 2007). Specific gravity test, silt/clay content and sieve analysis test were performed on each soil samples from different locations to check their suitability for block production, in addition, bulk density, compressive strength and water absorption were performed on the collected sandcrete blocks. In general, the compressive strength of the block samples was between 1.09 N/mm2 to 1.19 N/mm2 for six inches and 1.37 N/mm2 to 1.64 N/mm2 for nine inches which falls below the 2.5 N/mm2 and 3.45 N/mm2 minimum recommendation given by the NIS.