Investigating the characteristics of reinforced compressed earth block

Around half of the world’s population are living in some form of earthen building. Compressed earth blocks are widely known as a low-cost material that has high thermal capacity, low environmental impact, and ease of construction. The project will address three items: material characterization, development length of steel reinforcing bars and performance under freeze-thaw cycles. The material characterization work will focus on testing a series of CEBs under concentric compression as well as prisms of the same materials in four-point bending to get the compressive and the tensile strengths. The specimens will be subjected to freeze-thaw cycles to measure the durability of the material. Also, pull-out tests will be conducted on the reinforced compressed earth blocks to find an appropriate equation for the development length and compare it the reinforced concrete ones.

Faculty Supervisor:

Colin MacDougall;Amir Fam

Student:

Partner:

Geobloq

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

Queen's University

Program: