Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance

© 2018 Rammed earth is a traditional construction technology that has proven to be sustainable. This paper explores further improvement of its multifunctional performance by increasing the strength, reducing moisture permeation and increasing the thermal resistance. Surface application of microbial...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Porter, H., Blake, J., Dhami, Navdeep, Mukherjee, Abhijit
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier BV 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/68766
_version_ 1848761884961931264
author Porter, H.
Blake, J.
Dhami, Navdeep
Mukherjee, Abhijit
author_facet Porter, H.
Blake, J.
Dhami, Navdeep
Mukherjee, Abhijit
author_sort Porter, H.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2018 Rammed earth is a traditional construction technology that has proven to be sustainable. This paper explores further improvement of its multifunctional performance by increasing the strength, reducing moisture permeation and increasing the thermal resistance. Surface application of microbial cementation was found to increase the strength by 25%. The water permeability and erosion of the blocks also reduced by 24% and 62% respectively, due to surface application of microbial cementation. The thermal test showed that addition of crumb rubber resulted in a temperature difference of around 30 °C even after 6 h. However, the addition of crumb rubber also reduced the strength. This research demonstrates that significant improvement of overall performance of rammed earth materials can be achieved through various treatments. However, the overall performance requirements are specific to the engineering application and synergistic and antagonistic interactions must be considered to obtain an optimal performance.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T10:38:46Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-68766
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T10:38:46Z
publishDate 2018
publisher Elsevier BV
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-687662018-06-29T12:35:24Z Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance Porter, H. Blake, J. Dhami, Navdeep Mukherjee, Abhijit © 2018 Rammed earth is a traditional construction technology that has proven to be sustainable. This paper explores further improvement of its multifunctional performance by increasing the strength, reducing moisture permeation and increasing the thermal resistance. Surface application of microbial cementation was found to increase the strength by 25%. The water permeability and erosion of the blocks also reduced by 24% and 62% respectively, due to surface application of microbial cementation. The thermal test showed that addition of crumb rubber resulted in a temperature difference of around 30 °C even after 6 h. However, the addition of crumb rubber also reduced the strength. This research demonstrates that significant improvement of overall performance of rammed earth materials can be achieved through various treatments. However, the overall performance requirements are specific to the engineering application and synergistic and antagonistic interactions must be considered to obtain an optimal performance. 2018 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/68766 10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2018.04.013 Elsevier BV restricted
spellingShingle Porter, H.
Blake, J.
Dhami, Navdeep
Mukherjee, Abhijit
Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance
title Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance
title_full Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance
title_fullStr Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance
title_full_unstemmed Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance
title_short Rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance
title_sort rammed earth blocks with improved multifunctional performance
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/68766