Compressed Earth blocks with powdered green mussel shell as partial binder and pig hair as fiber reinforcement

• Main Authors: Gabaldon, Ram Julian L., Go, Patrick Jason T., Juan, Carlos Gabriel G., Wong, Michael T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Building materials; Concrete construction; Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/6449
• Institution: De La Salle University

Compressed Earth blocks (CEBs), made from soil ad compacted using a molder, have shown several weaknesses and have been known for its low strength. Thus several studies have started using cement as stabilizer for CEBs. Some studies have learned that compressed Earth blocks can perform well as concrete hollow blocks (CHBs). Due to the brittleness of CEBs, the waste material-- pig hair fibers (PHF), may be utilized as fiber reinforcement for CEBs to improve their performance against cracking. Due to the high cost of cement, another waste material-- green mussel shells (GMS), can be used as a substitute for cement and as a partial cement substitute in compressed Earth blocks. In this study, CEBs reinforced with PHF and GMS were subjected to compressive, flexural, and drip erosion tests. By varying the amount of PHF, amount of GMS, and the specimen curing time, 11 PHF-GMS combinations with a control specimen and 3 specimen curing periods (7 days, 14 days, and 28 days) were used for the study. Optimization was done through statistical analysis usign the statistical software Stata to remove outliers. To check the significance of the increase in strength in contrast to the control sample, it was followed by single factor ANOVA test and T-test: 2 variables assuming unequal variances. The results of this paper have shown that CEBs with 0.75%PHF-10%GMS contents have the highest average compressive strength and flexural strength which are 4.16 MPa and 0.3008 MPa respectively. This yields a 67% and 412% performance increase, as opposed to the control sample's performance. Lastly, the samples also with 0.375%PHF-10% GMS also performed well in the drip erosion test.