EFFECT OF ORGANIC SOIL ON STRENGTH PROPERTIES OF COMPRESSED CEMENT-SOIL BLOCK

Abstract

Compressed cement-soil block is used as low cost building material. In the south-western region of Bangladesh, there is availability of organic soil which is in the formation of overlying layer. Moreover, sandy materials do not occur and are not found easily in Bangladesh. The scarcity of sandy materials has led to the increase of the retail price and subsequently to higher production cost. So organic soil materials have been used as filler directly to produce cement-soil block. In this study, the compressive and flexural strengths of cement-soil block of density 1448kg/m³ to 1611kg/m³ with specified ratio of cement content were investigated using prism specimens. The observed elapsed periods were 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 56 and 112 days with the variation of organic contents of 2%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 40%. Preferable results on the 28th day indicated that the compressive strength and the flexural strength of cement-soil block with 20% organic content increased by 125% and 102% respectively. Moreover, the influence of density on the strength properties of cement-soil block was found to be higher than the age of the specimen.