The Evaluation of Engineering Properties of Low Cost Concrete Blocks by Partial Doping of Sand with Sawdust

Abstract

The main objective of the article is to reduce the quantity of sand with the natural agro waste materials and the performance of sawdust-sand-cement stabilized using sawdust (SD) and cement which investigates the water retention (WR), compressive quality (CQ) and flexural quality (FQ) of the sawdust-sand-cement blocks to find out the conceivable utilization of sawdust as an incomplete substitution of sawdust in blocks creation. For this purpose, various combinations of sawdust, sand, cement, water-content and drying time to create testing blocks. The compressive and flexural qualities of the sawdust-sand-cement blocks were determined using a universal testing machine, as they just cracked due to compression. The greatest compressive and flexural strength of 193 kg.cm-2 and 2.34 kg.cm-2 were recorded at 0% doping at 28th day. However, the most extreme estimation of 106 kg.cm-2 and 1.29 kg.cm-2 for 15% doping is discovered reasonable and prescribed for building development having been achieved at a 28th days compressive and flexural quality which is less than the Sri Lankan Standards (SLS). However, the 15% doping blocks have water retention of 12.4% at 28th days that is the minimum requirement for the block according to the Sri Lankan Standards (SLS). Therefore, these sawdust-sand-cement blocks were found to be weak for medium and heavy building constructions, because of its low density, light weight, low strength. Thus, these sawdust-sand-cement blocks can be used for interior wall partition and decorations. The sawdust-sand-cement block manufacturing procedure being simple can be undertaken as rural entrepreneurship by unskilled labors of developing countries.