The Impact of Various Soil Proportions Towards the Strength of Interlocking Compressed Earth Brick

Abstract

An interlocking compressed earth brick (ICEB) is a dry-stacked masonry brick with a similar production process to the Compressed Earth Brick (CEB). ICEB mainly consists of clay soil, sand, ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and water. This paper studies the properties of a combined soil (clay soil and sand), which affects the optimum moisture content (OMC) of the mixture and compressive strength of the produced specimens. There are five types of combined soils with mixture ratios of clay(C) soil to sand (S) of C55:S45, C50:S50, C45:S55, C40:S60, C35:S65 and C30:S70. Every mixture ratio shows a different OMC and varies in its compressive strength. The combination soil ratio of C45:S55, which means 45% of clay soil + 55% of sand, produced the highest compressive strength. The compressive strength increases as the clay content decreases and sand content increases. However, as the clay soil content decreased to lower than 45%, the compressive strength starts to decrease. It is due to the lack of plasticity properties from the clay which are responsible for bonding the material particles.