Green Construction Using Self-Consolidating Earth Concrete (SCEC) With Improved Multifunctional Performance

Rammed earth materials can bring many advantages regarding its low energy consuming and environment impacts and high thermal mass. To overcome the time consuming and labor-intensive process of construction, self-consolidating earth concrete (SCEC) can be an innovative solution to facilitate placement, consolidation, and achieve good performance. The Phase 1 will identify the optimum volume of paste, water-to-powder ratio (w/p), cement content, cement-to-clay ratio (c/c) and sand-to-total aggregate ratio (S/A) based on the targeted rheology properties and compressive strength development. This will be exploited to propose a a guideline for achieving SCEC with different soil types and achieved adapted properties given the application on hand. Moreover, no-cement mixture will be investigated in which only silt and clay are acting as binders. The Phase 2 of this investigation aims to evaluate the thermal performance of SCEC. The porosity, as a function of the microstructure of the material, and absorption of water play important roles in thermal performance of a building material since water has higher thermal conductivity than air.

Faculty Supervisor:

Ammar Yahia

Student:

Partner:

Université de La Rochelle

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Education

University:

Université de Sherbrooke

Program: