Prospects of coir fibre as reinforcement in termite mound clay bricks

Abstract

The study is to develop an appropriate environmental friendly building material that would be sourced, obtained locally and used for construction of structures at a low cost by using termite mound soil, reinforced with 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%. and 4% coir fibres. Physical and mechanical tests were conducted on the different composition samples after curing. The particle size distribution showed that clay had the largest percentage with a moisture content of 3.53%, specific gravity of 2.0, liquid limit of 30.5% and plastic limit value of 25.4. The compressive strength test showed a decrease with increase in fibre content from 1% upward, modulus of rupture test showed that increase in fibre content leads to a corresponding increase in rupture while the modulus of elasticity test showed that from 3% to 4% fibre content, a decrease in the elasticity occurred. It can be concluded that low fibre inclusion into compressed termite mound brick is feasible if fibre content do not exceed 2% and thus can be used for both load and non-loading bearing structures.