Effect of Moisture Content on the Compressive strength of a Local Rammed Earth Construction Material

Abstract

Finding sustainable and economical materials for building construction is a vital topic recently due to the negative effects of some current construction materials on the environment and also its relatively high cost. Local materials can be considered as a suitable alternative for building construction materials to minimize the environmental impacts. For example, rammed earth construction type uses local materials which typically consist of a mixture of gravel, sand, clay, and silt. Cement can be added with low fractions as a stabilizer and to improve the mechanical properties of rammed earth, such as compressive strength. This study focuses on assessing the moisture content effect on the compressive strength of the cement stabilized local rammed earth materials. A number of samples with various moisture content, i.e. 4%, 6%, 10%, and 14% were established and examined using a universal test machine in this study. The moisture content is found to significantly affect the compressive strength of the stabilized rammed earth local materials. Samples with 10% moisture content reached the highest compressive strength (average is 4 MPa) compared with others. Samples with 4% moisture content have the least compressive strength, i.e. average is 1.97 MPa. 