Self-compacting earth composite stabilized by alkaline activation for monolithic wall construction

The earth as a building material is coming back to the focus of the scientific community due to its low embodied energy. There are few studies about self-compacting earth composites as a building technique, therefore, the present work has the objective to develop a self-compacting earth composite with alkali activation for construction of monolithic walls and evaluation of its mechanical behavior. After a factorial design study, it was selected the best composition of earth, sand, metakaolin and activation solution for further evaluation of the composite and construction of the wall. For the selected composite, physical characterization, X Ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy, V funnel, compressive and flexural strength were carried out, in addition to the construction of a reduced wall. The composite’s compressive strength was 8.12 MPa at 3 days and 9.75 MPa at 28 days. The wall showed shrinkage cracks, which did not directly influence its failure mode, and reached a 3.30 MPa tension. Finally, the composite showed a nice rheological behavior both in its fresh and hardened states being able to be used on the construction of monolithic walls.

Keywords
Earth construction; Metakaolin; Self compacting; Sustainability