Study of the Thermal Insulation Properties of the Compressed Earth Block Stabilized with Gypsum

Abstract

One of the innovative ways that has been widely used in the last few decades is the production of compressed stabilized earth block with low cost and environmentally friendly. The current study aimed to study the geotechnical specification's for compressed stabilized earth block that were produced from earth materials for deposits of injana formation which were gathered from three different locations near Kirkuk governorate. A mix of soil samples were prepared in order to make a good soil mixture of 82% of sand and 17.43% of fine materials that include each of clay and silt to manufacture and produce compressed earth block. Then 15% of Paris plaster was added to the prepared soil mixture for the compressed stabilized earth block production, and then the wet soil mixture manually blended and compacted by manual press which is globally known as CINVA-RAM exerting high pressure by 17.2 MPA to produce all soil block samples. Then the blocks were cured naturally at room temperature for 28 days in order to undergo thermal insulation test. Based on the results it was concluded there is a close relationship between each of moisture content and the ability of thermal conduction for each block, in the sense that as it quickly loss water as the thermal insulation decrease and as it slowly loss water the thermal insulation increase, were the less value (0.005 W/Mk) of thermal conduction is recorded in block samples produced from the mixture soil which in turn is inversely proportional with thermal insulation.