Feasibility Study of Natural Fibre Reinforced Mud Blocks as a Building Material

EasyChair Preprint 3080

Abstract

Use of natural fibres is found to be an economical, eco-friendly, sustainable and efficient method of soil stabilization. The study investigates the improvements in compressive strength and crack resistance achieved by the introduction of banana fibres in mud blocks in locally available soil replaced with industrial residues. Among the natural fibres banana fibres are abundantly available in Kerala. Adobe samples were prepared with plain soil replaced with 10% industrial residues, reinforced with banana fibres of different percentages (0.25% to 1.00%) with an optimum fibre length of 60 mm and tested for strength and durability characteristics of the samples. Results show that the fibres greatly improved the compressive strength and the water absorption characteristics of stabilized mud blocks compared to the unreinforced soil. The effect of percentages of fibres on compressive strength and its influence on the post- fracture behaviour of the mud block compared to the unreinforced specimens of same size were also discussed in this paper.

Keyphrases: Brick, Industrial residues, Natural fibre, Stabilized mud blocks, building blocks

@booklet{EasyChair:3080,
  author    = {A Rajalakshmy and Subha Vishnudas and M S Lekshmi and Parvathy A Nair},
  title     = {Feasibility Study of Natural Fibre Reinforced Mud Blocks as a Building Material},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 3080},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}