Assessment of Strength of Hollow Concrete Blocks with Holes Reinforced with Half Portion of Coconut Shells

Abstract

Natural building materials are diminishing day by day. Hence economical alternatives of natural building materials are necessary for sustainable development. Hollow concrete block was developed to reduce the use of natural building materials. Agricultural waste products like coconut shells from coconut industry have disposal problems causing environmental concerns. Various studies were done in the past, replacing a portion of the natural aggregates with broken coconut shells for manufacturing the hollow concrete blocks. In this study, we have developed a new method of forming the holes of hollow concrete blocks by placing stacks of half portion of coconut shells at the bottom with convex surface upwards to reinforce the holes by arch action. The results show that the coconut shell reinforced hollow concrete blocks have better strength as compared to open-graded hollow concrete blocks available in the market.