STUDIES ON STABILISED ADOBE BLOCKS

Abstract

The construction practices of today demands production of alternative building materials which consume less energy and can be used for construction. One such material is the stabilized adobe bricks. In the present work, the adobes are prepared using the locally available soil in the nearby region in Bangalore. Since blocks purely made of soil are prone to shrinkage it is required to stabilize these blocks. Hence, an attempt is made to stabilize these blocks using lime and cement in varying proportions. The variation in properties like compressive strength, initial rate of absorption and water absorption are studied and compared..The main objective of this project is to analyze the various engineering properties of adobe bricks using lime as the stabilizer so as to establish the potential of these bricks as an alternative to traditional bricks. The present work aims at investigating lime as stabilizer to adobe brick mixes commonly used in Bangalore region. The results obtained ascertain that these can be used as a masonry unit in construction industries replacing other traditional materials which contain a lot of embodied energy.