Utilization of palm oil fuel ash in interlocking compressed earth brick

• Main Author: Yvonne William Tonduba
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: TA401-492 Materials of engineering and construction. Mechanics of materials
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/39040/1/24%20PAGES.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/39040/2/FULLTEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/39040/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sabah

Interlocking compressed earth brick (ICEB) consists of clay soil, sand, ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and water. The usage of OPC in construction industry have been shown to increase the environmental problem and greenhouse effect. Palm oil fuel ash (POFA) has been reported as a potential pozzolanic material that can be used as OPC replacement. This study investigated the pozzolanic reaction of Ultrafine POFA (UfPOFA), finding the control mix proportion of ICEB and studied the effect of using UfPOFA as partial OPC replacement on ICEB performance. The characterization of UfPOFA was in accordance with ASTM C618. The mixture proportion of control ICEB were investigated based on ten (10) different ratios of clay soil and sand. Then, 5 batches of ICEB incorporating 10% to 40% of ultrafine POFA (UfPOFA) as OPC replacement were prepared and cured for 7 and 28 days to investigate mechanical and durability properties. The characterization results found that grinding POFA into ultrafine size has better physical and chemical properties and it conformed Class C pozzolan. Mixture C65S35 (65% clay soil + 35% sand) proved to be the optimum mix proportion of soils for ICEB production. As for the ICEB containing UfPOFA, the bulk density and compressive strength results revealed that it reduced with utilization of UfPOFA. The IRA, water absorption and total volume porosity also showed increment with UfPOFA utilization. All the findings showed that utilization of UfPOFA as OPC replacement did not improve the performance of ICEB. However, mixture CP10 obtained the highest bulk density and compressive strength. The compressive strength obtained was 6.50 MPa, which satisfies the minimum strength requirement of brick (5.20 Mpa) according to MS 76:1972. Mixture CP10 also proved to have the lowest IRA, water absorption and total volume porosity. SEM analysis observed that CP10 had denser microstructure. In conclusion, this study revealed that a 10% UfPOFA (series CP10) have the potential to be utilized as partial OPC replacement in the production of sustainable ICEB.