Abstract
Sustainable construction is an urgent theme in both industrial and developing countries where the construction sector consumes 36% of worldwide energy usage and 40% of the natural resources. Moreover, it causes a hug adverse impact on the environment. One of the major practices to achieve sustainability in construction sector is the use of waste and recycled materials as building materials. The use of waste reduces the consumption of natural resources, energy consumption and carbon emissions. This study is carried out on three types of waste and by-product materials; excavation waste, crushed red brick, and fly ash (FA) which emits from coal-fired thermal plants. The study aims to assess these materials to produce rammed earth as sustainable solution reduces resource consumption, energy consumption, and the environmental pollutants caused by building activities and industrial waste. In order to achieve that, five FA levels 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% were mixed with excavation waste of natural soil, and crushed red brick to prepare five rammed earth mixtures. The samples were tested for compressive strength, dry shrinkage, erosion resistance, and microstructure analysis using the scanning electron microscope. The obtained results show that the aforementioned materials can be utilized to produce rammed earth comply with the standard requirements. Also, the observed results indicate that the better properties were measured for mixture prepared using 20% fly ash.
Highlights
The Construction industry consumes about 40% of natural extracted resources [1] and consumes 40% of the energy in the developed countries [2]
The compressive strength values are acceptable since the minimum compressive strength requirements is 1.35MPa [47].These values are related to several factors such as; the compaction process used since compacting the soil where the higher density obtained by compaction significantly increases the compressive strength [48], the presence of coarse crushed bricks, the filler and pozzolanic effect of superfine particles of crushed bricks [49], and the pozzolanic reactivity of fly ash [50].These results show that there is an increase in compressive strength as the fly ash content increase
The examined materials are suitable to use in rammed earth walls where the results related to compressive strength, linear shrinkage, and durability were complied with the standard requirements
Summary
The Construction industry consumes about 40% of natural extracted resources [1] and consumes 40% of the energy in the developed countries [2]. It is important to find alternative building materials to minimize resource consumption (energy, land, water, materials), and to maximize both resource efficiency and protection of the natural environment These targets can be achieved by expanding the use of sustainable and green building materials, as they provide better gains in the long run [7, 8]. Transportation CO2 emissions can be reduced if on-site excavation earth and construction demolition waste are used as a building material. Other studies focused on the use of construction waste as an alternative to aggregate or cement in the manufacture of concrete and mortars. To enhance the binding and tensile strength of rammed earth in seismic areas, fibers are added [43]
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