Performance of Mechanized Pugged Soil Stabilized Adobe

Author links open overlay

panelTejaswini G. , Veeresh R. , Annapurna B.P. , Jagadish K.S.
a a a b

Abstract
The soil has been the most abundantly available construction material for
use in human society, and it has been considered the primary material for
any form of construction. Local availability and ease of handling make it
one of the most energy-efficient, cost-effective, and reliable building
materials for any structure. The traditional construction technology using
soil has been undergoing a considerable change over a while, enhancing its
quality and durability as a construction material. It has immense benefits in
minimizing the impact of environmental pollution. The paper mainly
focuses on comparing the strength of Soil Stabilized Adobe (SSA) (size
−230 mm*108 mm*100 mm) prepared by mechanized pugging (using wet
mixer grinder) and manual pugging. Compare to manual pugging, the
process of mechanized pugging increases the consistency of the soil
structure making it a homogenous mixture of clay, silt, sand and stabilizers.
The soil considered in the study was red soil containing kaolinite type clay
and has been reconstituted for 10% clay by adding M−sand. The different
parameters considered in the study were: variation in pugging time
(Mechanized Pugging −3min, 6 min, and 9 min and Manual Pugging
−10 min and 15 min) and stabilizers (Cement alone (8%), lime alone(8%),
and Combination of cement (6%) + lime (3%)). The following tests were
conducted on SSA samples to study their performance: dry
density, compressive strengths, water absorption and initial rate of
absorption. The findings showed that, the SSA made by Mechanized
pugging is more advantageous compared to Manual Pugging, as it saves
time of pugging, increases the strength and consistency of the soil and
reduces water absorption. Additionally, increase in pugging time improves
the SSAs quality.
Introduction
In recent times stabilized mud blocks are being used worldwide for building
construction. There is a need to promote awareness of appropriate
construction technologies in civil society and the private sector.
Appropriate technologies refer to materials, methods, and practices which
help in protecting the natural environment. Inspiration from the cultural
values and practices in the area makes use of local resources and
contributes to local economic development. Earthen structures are more
environment friendly, easily accessible, and affordable material that offers a
habitual cultural link to nature [20]. Moreover, working with soil is easy to
handle and requires less skills. This encourages and facilitates unskilled
individuals and groups to participate in the housing construction on a self-
help basis [8]. Soil is generally considered to be heavy and of low strength.
However, it can be reconstituted, stabilized and pugged to yield high
compressive strength [8]. Due to its high thermal mass, the energy demand
of buildings and the energy input required in the production and
transportation of the material is inherently low; hence, SSA is
environmentally sustainable. According to Vroomen [9], contemporary
stabilized earth construction is environmentally sustainable compared to
the conventional (fired brick and hollow concrete blocks) building materials
and would be appropriate in case of urban house construction.
The main drawback of earthen structures is durability issues which includes
erosion due to rain, spalling, cross-section reduction, cracking, shrinkage
and dimensional stability [12], [14], [16], [22]. Typically, to address
durability issues and invent sustainable structures, various conventional
additives such as lime, fly ash, and cement has been added to soils for soil
stabilization [21]. This technology uses soil to make blocks that are
naturally or chemically stabilized. The use of Stabilized soil is an alternative
to burnt bricks.
Usually, Soil Stabilized blocks (SSB) are prepared by spraying requisite
amount of water onto the dry mixture of soil, sand and stabilisers and
thoroughly mixed to create a consistent mixture. An established quantity of
processed mixture is put into the machine's mould, and it is then
compacted. But SSA is prepared by pugging the soil for prescribed time and
dashing the pugged soil to a mould from a certain height instead of pressing
using a machine. It is interesting to explore the possibility of making Soil
Stabilized Adobe (SSA) by a different pugging method which would
probably combine the advantage of the Soil Stabilized block and the
simplicity of making traditional hand-moulded Adobe. Adopting Adobe has
two benefits, firstly the soil is kneaded/pugged before it is filled into the
mould, pugging increases the consistency of the soil. The second advantage
is the natural densification of the soil [18]. In case of pugged Adobe, the
process of pugging removes clay lumps from soil which is very hard to
crush. Where as in SSB obtained by machine pressing some of these clay
lumps remain without getting crushed. The benefits of Adobe are manifold,
and its use is versatile.
Following initial work by Subhash Basu et al in 1991, a series of studies
were conducted further to develop the use of the stabilized adobe concept
by manual pugging method. Ramprasad et al. [10] conducted studies on
30 min manually pugged SSAs, by varying the clay content and stabilizer
percentage. Found that reducing clay content from 24.45% to 15.3% leads
to significant improvements in strength and moisture content. Bharat et al
[11] studied a manually pugged red soil with about 20% clay stabilised by
varying lime and cement percentages. It is observed that lime stabilization
picks up strength after 60 days, 3% lime and 8% cement gives rise to higher
strength values. Moisture absorption comes down when lime and cement
are used in conjuction. Namrata Bharadwaj [15] carried out studies by
varying clay content from 10% to 20% and also various combination of
cement and lime. She also tried manual and mechanized pugging for
duration of 5 min to understand the effect of varying the intensity of
pugging. Finally, concluded that compared to manual pugging mechanized
pugging shows better strength. Joshi et al [19] examined the performance
of manually pugged SSAs, prepared using construction and demolition
waste. Density, Wet Compressive Strength, Wet Flexure Strength improved
with increase in replacement of DBM waste and peak performance was
observed in the range of 60–80% replacement. In Ramakrishnan’s [23]
review paper, discuss about different types of fibres used in the Adobe by
adopting hydraulic pressure and manual compaction. On examining
mechanical properties, banana fibre stabilized adobe made by hydraulic
presser exhibits high Compressive strength of around 65% and high
flexural strength of around 75% for length between 60 and 70 mm.
From the literature, it is observed that studies have been made on SSAs
prepared by manual pugging for a particular period of time of pugging but
studies on the effect of different types of pugging and different pugging
time is not been focused. In the present study, an attempt has been made to
explore the use of mechanized pugging as an alternative to manual pugging
also for the varying the pugging time. The SSAs with different stabilizers
were prepared through conventional manual pugging and an improved
pugging method, i.e. mechanized pugging method using a wet grinder.
The main objective of this current experimental program was to understand
the effect of the method of pugging and the pugging duration on the
properties of SSAs. A detailed practical program has been carried out by
adopting the manual pugging method and mechanized pugging method
(grinding using wet grinder) for different duration of pugging. SSAs were
prepared by both manual and mechanized pugging for varying stabilizers
(cement alone, lime alone, and combination of cement and lime) and
varying pugging time (manual pugging − 10 min &15 min, and mechanized
pugging −3min, 6 min, & 9 min) for a curing period of 28 days. The
performances of SSAs were studied by conducting the following tests- Dry
Density, Wet Compressive Strength (WCS), and Dry Compressive Strength
(DCS), Water Absorption (WA), Initial Rate of Absorption (IRA).

Section snippets

Materials
For the production of stabilized mud blocks controlling and monitoring clay
fraction is essential. The density and strength characteristics mainly
depend on the proportions of sand size particles and fines present in the
soil [19], [24]. It is preferable to have non-expansive clays in the soil. The
good soil composition should have 0–10% gravel, 50–80% sand and 10–
40% silt and 5–18% clay as per IS 1725–2013[1].
In the present study, red soil with kaolinite type of clay has been procured
from

Test procedure
The following tests were performed according to BIS codes.

Results and discussion

Fig. 3 to Fig. 7 presents the variation of Dry density, Wet compressive
strength, Dry compressive strength, water absorption and initial rate of
absorption with respect to duration of pugging time of SSA for both
mechanized pugging and manual pugging. Duration of Mechanised pugging
(grinding) varied for 3, 6 and 9 min and Manual pugging varied for 10 min
and 15 min. The specimens were cured for a period of 28 days. In this
section, the performance of SSA prepared by mechanized pugging has been

Conclusion
• 1.
 Mechanised pugged (grinding) SSAs was better than the Manuallly
pugged SSAs, as it improves the consistency of the SSA, reduces the
quantity of water required in the preparation of Adobes and also
improves the strength.
• 2.
By mechanised pugging the soil particle becomes more finer due to
grinding, and the densification of the soil increases which in turn
contributes in increase in the wet and dry compressive strength of
SSA.
• 3.
In Mechanised pugging of SSA the soil gets more densified and
reduces the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests
or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work
reported in this paper.
Palm fiber as a natural reinforcement for improving the
properties of traditional adobe bricks
Author links open overlay
panelAbolfazl Eslami , Hosein Mohammadi , Hosein Mirabi
a b

Banadaki c

Show more
Add to Mendeley
Share
Cite
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2022.126808Get rights and content

Abstract
This study investigates the short- and long-term characteristics of
adobe bricks containing palm fibers of different soil weight ratios
(0.25 to 1%). Towards this, the compressive strength, tensile strength,
and ductility performance of specimens are evaluated while the
microstructural characteristics of both the fibers and adobe specimens
are investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The
findings reveal the superior performance of fiber-reinforced adobe
bricks compared to their unreinforced counterparts. In addition, the
tensile strength of the adobe bricks rises with increasing the fiber
content while the highest compressive strength is found in specimens
with 0.25% fiber content.
Introduction
Earthen materials have been used in the construction industry not
only in the developing countries since antiquity (e.g., Iran, Peru, Chile,
and Colombia) but also in modern industrialized societies [1], [2], [3],
[4]. It is estimated that 30–50% of the world population, mainly
inhabiting parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, still live in earthen
structures [5], [6]. Recently, however, earthen constructions have
been receiving a renewed attention as a response to the growing
concerns about the adverse environmental impacts of CO emissions 2
due to the production of modern construction materials [7], [8], [9].
As an environmentally-friendly material, earth can be produced from
local sources rendering it an irresistible material that can ensure
sustainability in the construction industry. In addition, the material
offers the distinguished advantages of thermal and humidity
insulation as evidenced by the ability of earthen walls to store heat and
to balance the air humidity inside the buildings [9], [10], [11].
Earthen buildings may be generally classified into two categories:
those built of adobe bricks set by mud mortar and those of rammed
earth. Adobe bricks are made by molding a soil mixture while rammed
earth is made of earth compacted into a formwork using a rammer.
Both adobe bricks and rammed earth are air-dried [12], [13], [14]. In
some regions, including the Iranian plateau, the adobe is the
overriding technique in earthen constructions due to its lower cost and
ease of fabrication compared to rammed earth [7], [15], [16].
Adobe bricks exhibit a highly diverse compressive strength, ranging
from as low as 0.6 to as high as 7 MPa, while their tensile strength is
relatively low (approximately 10% their compressive strength) [17].
When saturated with water, their low water resistance might lead to
their further reduced strength until they completely disintegrate.
Various methods such as mechanical compaction (e.g., higher
pressure composition), chemical stabilization (e.g., cement, lime, and
bitumen), and fiber addition (e.g., hemp straw [18], fonio straw [19],
and jute fiber [20]) have been employed to overcome these
shortcomings. Cement stabilization, however, is not recommended
due to their adverse environmental impacts [21].
Natural/synthetic fibers added to the adobe soil mix create an internal
reinforcement that strengthens adobe bricks [22], [23], [24]. Previous
study has shown enhanced flexural strength (by up to 80%) [18],
compressive strength (by up to 70%) [25], and water resistance [1],
[26] in fiber-reinforced adobe bricks when compared with those of
their unreinforced counterparts. Araya-Letelier et al. [20] evaluated
the effects of jute fibers used as reinforcement on the performance of
adobe bricks to find that jute fiber was able to significantly improve
the performance of adobe bricks in terms of thermal conductivity,
drying shrinkage, cracking control, flexural toughness, and water
erosion without affecting their compressive and flexural strengths. Ige
et al. [27] investigated the properties of adobe bricks reinforced with
different ratios (0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1% of dry soil weight) of
plantain pseudo-stem fibers. The fiber-reinforced specimens showed
improvements of up to 53 and 33% in tensile and compressive
strengths, respectively. Chicken feather fibers (added by up to 1% dry
soil weight) have also proved effective in enhancing the durability of
adobe bricks albeit they had no major effects on their physical and
mechanical properties [28].
2. Research significance
The current study is part of an on-going extensive research aimed at
strengthening, evaluating, and reducing the seismic vulnerability of
adobe buildings in the historic city of Yazd [2], [15], [29], [30], [31],
[32], [33]. The city is inscribed on the UNESCO’s World Heritage [34].
Given that the city is prone to a moderate seismic hazard, there is a
general consensus among scholars and authorities that the existing
adobe buildings in Yazd need to be strengthened and that the newly-
built ones need to be reinforced in order for them to withstand
earthquake-induced forces.
The primary purpose of the current study is to evaluate the efficacy of
palm fibers in improving the mechanical and durability properties of
adobe bricks. Commonly found in the Middle East, North Africa, the
Canary Islands, Pakistan, and India, the boughs of the palm tree are
rich in fibers forming natural woven mats of different diameters.
Traditionally, these mats are removed from the trees annually, only a
small portion of is used to make traditional ropes with the rest
discarded as waste. Hence, it will be beneficial to use these fiber mats
for improving the mechanical properties of adobe materials and to
open their way into a new promising market.

Section snippets

Experimentation and results

The test specimens included both unreinforced and fiber-reinforced
adobe bricks 200 × 200 × 50 mm in size made by a local mason
following the techniques traditionally used in the region. The soil was
procured from a local adobe factory. Initially, palm fibers were added
to the soil mix at predetermined weight ratios and a paste was
subsequently made by adding water to the mixture. The paste thus
obtained was then covered under a plastic sheet not only to prevent
water evaporation but also to

Comparison with the previous test results

In recent years, a number of studies have been devoted to the use of
natural and synthetic fibers aimed at improving the mechanical
properties of adobe bricks [19], [25], [27], [28], [56], [55]. Table 7
compares the results of mechanical properties with those obtained in
the current study while the durability aspects are summarized in Table
8.
Evidently, most of fibers used in the reported studies were able to
produce considerable enhancements in the mechanical properties of
adobe bricks.

Conclusions
The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of
palm fiber as a natural reinforcement on the mechanical properties
and durability of traditional adobe bricks. For this purpose, adobe
specimens were cast with different fiber contents and subjected to
various tests. Based on the results obtained, the following conclusions
may be drawn:
• •
The unreinforced and fiber-reinforced brick specimens exhibited
average compressive strengths of 3.07 and 4.88 MPa,
respectively, while the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Material characterisation of heavy-weight and

lightweight adobe brick walls and in-plane strengthening
techniques
Author links open overlay
panelMarta Giaretton, Dmytro Dizhur, Hugh Morris
Show more
Add to Mendeley
Share
Cite
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.125309Get rights and content

Abstract
Adobe housing is used in developed countries and much more in less
developed countries. Such construction is expected to rise with the
increase in world population and the worldwide need of more
sustainable and eco-friendly solutions. The large mass associated with
earthen buildings is favourable for thermal comfort in regions with
large diurnal temperature variations, but it causes these buildings to
experience high inertial loading in the event of an earthquake, thus
posing a major risk to their inhabitants. Lightweight adobe bricks have
been developed and adopted in New Zealand to mitigate the seismic
risk, and provide better thermal insulation for sustained periods of hot
or cold. There is still a lack in research and national standard
literature regarding their material characteristics and earthquake
performance. The experimental campaign described herein aims to
determine the material properties and in-plane performance of the
lightweight adobe walls and compare them to the traditional heavy-
weight adobe. Different mesh materials have also been investigated to
be used as horizontal reinforcement laid in the mortar joints to
enhance the shear characteristics of the adobe wall. Diagonal
compression tests were undertaken in as-built panels and in walls
strengthened with biaxial polypropylene geogrid.
Introduction
Earth is one of the oldest construction materials still in use both in
developed and least developed countries. It is estimated that
approximately 30% of historical heritage sites are built from earth
materials [1] and that 30–40% of the world’s population currently live
or work in structures made of earth [2]. The foreseeable increase in
world population (expected to increase by more than 2 billion people
by 2030 [3] and will mainly occur in less developed regions) combined
with the worldwide need for more sustainable development would
further increase the number of eco-friendly earthen constructions.
Hence there is a need for studies and design guidelines that cover all
key aspects such as construction details, thermal comfort, eco-
efficiency, seismic behaviour and strengthening. One example
overview of the eco-efficiency aspects for earthen construction such as
durability, non-renewable resource consumption, waste generation,
energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, toxicity, indoor air
quality and economic advantages is provided in [4].
National standards or design guidelines specifically for earthen
construction have already been introduced in some countries. In
Germany, the first Earth Building Code dates back to 1944 and was
put into practice in 1951 with DIN 18951. This code was subsequently
withdrawn in 1971, and in 1997 the German Association for Building
with Earth (DVL) published the “Lehmbau Regeln”, which established
a regulatory framework for earth building in practice [5]. The
Australian guidelines for earthen constructions were published in 1952
by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
(CSIRO) under the designation of ‘‘Bulletin 5’’. This document was
replaced in 2002 by the Australian Earth Building Handbook [6]. The
first Peruvian adobe code was approved in 1985 as an integral part of
the National Building Code [7] and has been used as an essential
reference for the development of seismic codes in other vulnerable
countries such as India and Nepal. The US State of New Mexico has a
particular building code for adobe and rammed earth [8]. In 1992 the
Spanish Ministry of Transport and Public Works published a guidance
document [9] for the design and construction of earthen structures.
And so on in France, India, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique,
Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey and
Costa Rica [10].
New Zealand has one of the most comprehensive legally cited
regulations on earthen construction which is structured in three
distinct parts published in 1998 [11]: (i) NZS 4298 [12] defines the
material and workmanship requirements to comply with the
requirements of the NZ Building Code, (ii) NZS 4297 [13] specifies
design criteria, methodologies and performance aspects to be used by
structural engineers, (iii) NZS 4299 [14] provides the methods and
details for the design and construction of non-engineered earthen
buildings. However, during the last two decades earth building design
in New Zealand has seen changes in both construction methods and
materials, making unsuitable some of the limitations associated with
brick properties and the construction methods that are suggested in
the standards [15], and hence further studies were required. One of
the reasons for these changes in construction methods and materials is
related to the performance of earth buildings observed after severe
earthquakes such as the 2010/2011 Canterbury sequence [16], [17] and
the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake [18], see Fig. 1, Fig. 2.
In New Zealand increased requirements for thermal performance in
colder parts of the country as well as the seismic risk began to restrict
the use of heavy earth wall materials. Earth housing in seismic regions
experience high inertial loading because of the large self-weight of the
material and hence pose a significant risk to building inhabitants. To
improve the insulation and mitigate the earthquake risk, lightweight
adobe bricks were designed and used in combination with other
strengthening techniques. Seismic strengthening methods typically
used in New Zealand buildings include vertical and/or horizontal steel
reinforcement, a geogrid installed within the mortar bed-joints, or
other textile materials plastered on the wall surface. The seismic
performance of New Zealand earthen buildings strengthened using
these techniques are discussed in [17]. The installation of a geogrid
within the mortar bed-joints was proven to enhance the joint strength,
reduce the lateral displacement and prevent the material sliding when
cracks occur [19]. The seismic vulnerability of earthen constructions
increases with the presence of cracks or of moisture damage, which
weakens the material during cycles of soaking and drying or through
continuous saturation. As a consequence, to minimise potential
damage caused by moisture cycles, it is of high importance to select
the construction material based on their moisture content and
absorption capacity.
The study presented herein aims to determine the material
characteristics of heavy-weight and lightweight adobe bricks,
including component percentages, moisture content, density and
mechanical properties. Strengthening techniques and in particular the
use of geogrid were investigated by means of material tests and
diagonal compression tests. The main focus of the research was to
investigate the modern construction method for the revision of the
New Zealand earth building standards due to be published in 2020.

Section snippets

Experimental programme
The experimental programme consisted of two phases, the first of
which was an experimental phase to characterise the material
properties of traditional heavy-weight adobe bricks and innovative
lightweight adobe bricks in terms of particle size distribution,
compressive strength and flexural strengths. The influence of the
moisture content and density on the mechanical properties of the
material was also investigated. Small-scale tests were conducted on as-
built adobe masonry triplet samples to

Heavy-weight and lightweight adobe bricks

The adobe bricks used in this study were made from local (Nelson,
New Zealand) clays in standard dimensions of L430 × W280 × T140
mm. Two types of load-bearing, non-cement stabilised bricks were
used in the experimental programme: (i) the standard heavy-weight
and (ii) the newly developed lightweight adobe, see Fig. 3. Lightweight
adobe was developed by The Earth Building Association of New
Zealand in collaboration with Solid Earth Ltd using a higher
percentage of cellulose and fibre content

Strengthening technique and tests

The in-plane strength of adobe masonry is governed mainly by the
effectiveness of the bond between the adobe block and the mud mortar
rather than the strength of the block itself. Hence the use of horizontal
reinforcement (e.g. mesh) laid in the mortar joints enhances the shear
characteristics of the adobe wall when subjected to lateral loading [31].
During this experimental campaign, different mesh types were tested
to investigate possible low-cost and widely available alternatives to
improve

Diagonal compression tests

Diagonal compression tests were performed on four adobe masonry
panels, two constructed using heavy-weight bricks and two using
lightweight bricks. The panels had dimensions of
1200L × 1200H × 280 T mm.

Conclusions
Earth housing in seismic regions experience high inertial loading
because of the large self-weight of the material and hence pose a major
risk to building inhabitants. The use of lightweight adobe bricks has
become popular in the effort to mitigate this risk. To evaluate
traditional (heavy-weight) and innovative (lightweight) adobe brick
properties for adobe constructions and their earthquake in-plane
strengthening solutions, an extensive experimental programme which
included material

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Marta Giaretton: Data curation, Writing – original draft. Dmytro
Dizhur: Writing – review & editing. Hugh
Morris: Conceptualization, Investigation, Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge members of the Earth Building
Association of New Zealand (EBANZ), in particular, Verena Maeder of
Solid Earth Ltd, Alan Drayton of Biobuild and Richard Walker for
supplying materials, construction assistance, insight and guidance
with knowledge and experience in the field of earth building. Thanks
also to Dr. John Butterworth, Sujith Padiyara, Hossam Abuel-Naga,
Michael Hodgson and to the technicians of the University of Auckland
(Tony Daligan and Mark Byrami,