In the old days , all nations around the world used the loam as a basic building material , whether in houses, mosques , walls , shelter, etc. This prevalent situation started to decline around (1900- A.C) when most of the world started to use cement instead in buildings.
Cement concrete is commonly used in building and other important engineering works where strength and durability are the prime importance factors , These advantages made the concrete an extremely important material. so it's widely used in domestic, rural, urban, commercial , and educational constructions.
Now , after a period of decline , building with clay is making a comeback , however ecological and economic Problems are leading to a return to clay as well.
clay as local , non- toxic , and recyclable material , is much more than just a substitute . Homeowners seeking money and energy-saving building materials are also seeing the advantages of the durable and healthy climate of structures built with natural materials like wood and clay.
As mentioned above , the need to search for natural materials as replacements in the construction process increases day by day, because of the environmental and material cost of modern building materials.
The scope of this project was to find out the best components to mix cement with loam (soil cement) to achieve the desired engineering parameters, Several tests have been carried out to evaluate these properties, especially those belong to strength, swelling, consolidation.
The loam used in this project consisted of clay, silt, and sand (fig 5.3).
Specific mass of loam passing sieve (#80) will be considered , the amount of water used is constant ( 20% of sample mass) , the amount of cement will defer , 3 percentages were considered to make 3 trials ( 10% , 15% , and 20% ) , the tests used were : unconfined , swelling , fire resistance , and permeability .
After carrying out the unconfined compression strength test , the sample B which contains 15% cement ,65% soil ,and water 20% gave the highest strength of 3.73 mpa. So the cement increased the strength of soil.
After carrying out the swelling test the sample B gave a low expansion volume of 0.13 cm3. So the cement reduced the volume expansion of soil , due to it's ability to bond the particles together.
After carrying out the Permeability test on the Sample B , it gave a Coefficient of permeability K =1.35*10-5 Cm/sec. So the Cement reduced the Permeability of the soil because it bond the particles together.
After carrying out the fire resistance test on sample B , it gave a 1:25 hr.
Before failing , deflecting, and contraction . and it can be considered a good time and enough in buildings if the were affected to fire flames.
So we advice to use a soil-cement mix. With percentage of 15% cement.
this percentage can be used in clay bricks , and in building structures.
More Trails should be made to increase the accuracy of the results, more tests must be done especially those belong to durability , strength and consolidation. Fire resistance test can be done by building a small wall of bricks and exposing it to a fire flames , in order to increase the accuracy . permeability test can be done by exposing it to continues running water to increase the accuracy.