Stabilised soil building blocks

Abstract

Many countries in the Third World are faced with the grave problem of providing adequate housing in sufficient quantity at a low cost in line with their economies and the resources of the people. From early ages soil has been used as a major building material for low cost dwellings and more recently, by using cement or lime as a soil stabiliser, reasonable building blocks have been produced. These blocks have been produced using a relatively low compacting pressure and have proved to be of limited satisfaction. Stabilised blocks are weak in the 'wet state' after dernoulding, and prone to damage whilst 'green'; however, after controlled curing, the undamaged blocks are generally usable. From experience it has been observed that the lime stabilised blocks deteriorate rapidly in a hot/wet climate whereas there is hardly any deterioration in a hot/dry climate. Manually operated block making machines have used a compacting pressure of around 2 MN/rn 2 and research has demonstrated that with a machine operating with a compacting pressure of 10 MN/rn2 good quality, durable stabilised soil building elements could be produced.