Construction

and Building

Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 1971–1976

MATERIALS
www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Compressive strength characteristics of cement stabilized rammed

earth walls
a,* b,1
C. Jayasinghe , N. Kamaladasa
a
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
b
Center for Housing Planning and Building (CHPB), 33, Sunil Mawatha, Pellawatta, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka

Received 12 May 2005; received in revised form 12 January 2006; accepted 31 May 2006
Available online 28 September 2006

Abstract

In order to minimize the environmental impacts caused by over exploitation of natural resources for the production of building mate-
rial, the possibility of using cement stabilized rammed earth for load-bearing walls has been assessed. Since the vertical load carrying
capacity primarily depends on the compressive strength, a comprehensive study was conducted for rammed earth walls constructed with
three commonly available laterite soil types in Sri Lanka. The results indicate the possibility of using rammed earth for single storey
houses which may also be extended to two storey houses. The load deformation characteristics were used to determine the suitable partial
safety factors for the structural design.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Rammed earth; Compressive strength; Stabilized earth

1. Introduction One such material that has captured the interest of many
researchers in the recent past is earth [1–4]. Earth can be
The provision of good quality housing is recognized as used for construction of walls in many ways. However,
an important responsibility for the welfare of people in there are a few undesirable properties such as loss of
any country. For this, building materials based on natural strength when saturated with water, erosion due to wind
resources are often used. Some examples are the use of clay or driving rain and poor dimensional stability. These draw-
for making bricks and river sand for making cement sand backs can be eliminated significantly by stabilizing the soil
blocks. The commercial exploitation of these resources with a chemical agent such as cement [4–6]. Cement stabi-
often leads to various environmental problems. If clay lized soil is generally used as individual blocks compacted
mines are not properly filled up, they can collect water either with manual or hydraulically operated machines.
and allow mosquitoes to breed. Extensive sand mining Significant research data are available for these applica-
can lower the river beds and allow salt water intrusion tions either as block strength or wall strengths [7,8]. After
inland. Therefore, the development of as many alternative an extensive research programme carried out at University
walling materials as possible will be of immense benefit to of Moratuwa there were several housing projects done in
minimize the impact on the environment. various parts of Sri Lanka with stabilized soil bricks using
locally available soils. These practical uses indicated the
suitability of various types of laterite soil available in Sri
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +94 11 2650567; fax: +94 11 2650622/ Lanka. Another possible application is cement stabilized
1216.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C. Jayasinghe), nishantha-
rammed earth which is gradually introduced in many coun-
[email protected] (N. Kamaladasa). tries. In order to use this material for wider applications, it
1
Tel.: +94 11 2785628; fax: +94 11 2787454. is necessary to develop strength characteristics based on

0950-0618/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2006.05.049
1972 C. Jayasinghe, N. Kamaladasa / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 1971–1976

locally available soil types. This will assist in reducing excess of 0.9 N/mm2 with 6% and higher cement contents
transport costs, embodied energy and life cycle costs when [7]. The compaction ratio was the ratio between the initial
soils of desirable characteristics are obtainable locally volume of soil to the final volume. For machine moulded
[9,10]. blocks, it is the difference between the initial height and
This paper highlights findings of a detailed research car- the final height.
ried out on structural properties of rammed earth using lat- Rammed earth differs from cement stabilized soil blocks
erite soil commonly available in areas with tropical climatic in the method of compaction and construction. Compac-
conditions. tion can be given using a steel rammer as shown in
After a successful testing programme at the University, Fig. 1. Construction can be carried out with steel slip forms
this technology has been introduced to several housing pro- as shown in Fig. 2. In a construction method adopted in Sri
jects in Sri Lanka and completed successfully. Lanka for rapid construction of single storey houses, a spe-
cial vertically sliding formwork system was used. This sys-
2. Objectives tem slides between corner and middle columns constructed
with interlocking cement stabilized soil blocks as shown in
The research was carried out with the following Fig. 2. It is often suggested that formwork is a significant
objectives: labour intensive activity consuming about 50% of the site
time for erecting, aligning, checking, striping, cleaning,
1. Selection of suitable soil types that can be used for moving and storing of the formwork [4]. This system elim-
rammed earth construction. inates most of these activities since once in place, the form-
2. Determination of strength characteristics of cement sta- work can slide continuously. The corner and middle
bilized rammed earth walls. columns can be erected rapidly with interlocking cement
3. Suggestion of desirable practices for rammed earth wall stabilized soil blocks manufactured with either hydrauli-
construction. cally or manually operated machines. The slip formed wall
will have the same thickness as the block work. This oper-
ation can be further improved with a mechanical rammer
3. Methodology instead of a manually operated rammer. However, for
countries with lower labour costs, manual rammer could
The following methodology was adopted to achieve the be a better solution. A pneumatic rammer was developed
above objectives: jointly with Mechanical Engineering Department of the
University and found successful in application.
1. The various soil types recommended in the literature A detailed study carried out at University of Bath indi-
were reviewed and three different soil types commonly cates that the compressive strength of about 1.0–3.0 N/
available in areas with tropical climatic conditions were mm2 can be obtained with unstabilized rammed earth
selected. [12]. Soils recommended were reasonably well graded
2. Wall panels were constructed with these soils to deter- between gravel and clay sized particles. However, there
mine the important physical and structural properties are strong indications that laterite soil can perform much
such as density, failure stress in compression and load better than clayey soils when stabilized with cement. There-
deformation behaviour. fore, in this study it was decided to concentrate on various
3. The above parameters were used to assess the perfor-
mance of rammed earth walls when used in single storey
houses.

4. Soil types for rammed earth walls

The composition of soils in different parts of the world

varies considerably due to the origin and the climatic con-
ditions. The literature indicates the uses of laterite soils and
clayey soils [7,11] for cement stabilized soil blocks. A com-
prehensive study carried out in India indicates the strength
values in the range of 2.5–10.0 N/mm2 for individual
blocks and 0.9–3.87 N/mm2 for masonry prisms [8]. The
dry and wet strength varies with the mortar used for bind-
ing. In a detailed study carried out with cement stabilized
soil blocks manufactured with a manually operated
machine giving a compaction ratio of 1.65 indicated block
strengths of about 2–4.5 N/mm2 and wall strengths in Fig. 1. Rammer used to construct rammed earth walls.
 C. Jayasinghe, N. Kamaladasa / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 1971–1976 1973

walls of length 0.6, 1.2, 1.8, 2.4, 3.0 and 3.6 m. The soil,
prepared with some moisture and cement, is placed in lay-
ers of about 150 mm and compacted with a manually oper-
ated rammer. Once the soil is compacted well, the
formwork is slipped upwards for the next lift of the wall
using the long screws available with the moulds shown in
Fig. 2.
Due to this special compaction and slip forming,
rammed earth offers an ideal opportunity to use laterite soil
with hard lumps or laterite soils with very low percentage
of clay and silt. However, the soils shall not contain parti-
cles larger than 38 mm in diameter [5]. The compaction
method with rammers can break up hard laterite lumps
to smaller pieces and give a good finish. Since the green
strength is important to a lesser extent for slip forming,
even soils with lower clay and silt (fines) contents can pro-
Fig. 2. Slip form moulds used for wall construction. vide a stable wall with a good finish. The soils with hard
lumps would act more like a mass concrete where mortar
and aggregate forms the structure since the soil is sieved
types of laterite soils available in Sri Lanka which is also through a 38 mm mesh before mixing with cement.
usually found in the areas with tropical climatic conditions. Sieve analysis was performed on three types of soils used
for the experimental study. The results are given in Table 1.
5. Laterite soils for rammed earth Although the sieve analysis gave detailed breakdown for
percentages, clay and silt (fines < 0.06 mm) percentage
Laterite soils are formed due to the weathering process was reported together. This is due to the difficulties in sep-
of igneous or metamorphic rock over millions of years. arating them at site conditions using a simple jar test. In
These soils are rich in aluminum and ferrous oxides that this test, a soil sample is placed in a bottle to about 1/3
give either yellowish or reddish colours. These soils are the volume and the rest is filled up with water. It is shaken
available in most parts of Sri Lanka except in some coastal well after adding some salt and then left for about 24 h to
areas and low lying areas. settle. The composition of soil sample can be seen as layers.
In a detailed study carried out in Sri Lanka for cement It is an ideal test for identifying the approximate composi-
stabilized laterite soil blocks, it was found that the fines tion of a soil [11]. Table 1 gives the fines content obtained
content consisting of clay and silt particles smaller than from the jar test as well.
0.06 mm should be less than 30% for obtaining better It can be seen from Table 1 that the soil identified as
results. A drastic drop in strength was observed when the Sandy has a very low fines content and a high sand content.
fines content increased above 40%. Therefore, a maximum The soil identified as Hard Laterite had 14.4% fines and
fines content of 30% is generally recommended for load- high percentage of particles larger than 19 mm and gravel.
bearing construction [7]. During dynamic compaction, the composition can change
For machine moulded cement stabilized soil blocks, the to a certain extent since some of the large particles will
block is immediately removed from the mould (green break into smaller particles and hence gives a reasonably
block) and hence very low fines content is also not desir- smooth surface for the wall. A similar finding was reported
able. Therefore, fines content between 20% and 30% is gen- by Bahar et al. [1], who suggested that rammed earth tech-
erally considered as the optimum. However, rammed earth nology is suitable for soils with high percentage of large
is manufactured with slip formed moulds and hence there is grain size particles.
no handling required at the green stage. Thus, even soils
with very low fines content can be used for rammed earth. 6. The construction aspects
Laterite soils are generally formed due to long term weath-
ering of igneous rocks and hence available as laterite hills. It was shown that rammed earth will allow a wide vari-
When the weathering is less, it is available as hard laterite ety of soils with different composition to be used since the
hills or laterite soil with hard lumps. These two types are green strength is not very important and also due to com-
not used with cement stabilized soil blocks due to difficul- paction of dynamic nature. Nevertheless, there are certain
ties in obtaining a good finish. quality controlling measures that should be adopted for
For rammed earth walls, compaction is obtained in a these walls.
special way which is closer to dynamic compaction than One parameter that can influence the compaction very
static or pseudo static compaction generally achieved in much is the moisture content used. If too little moisture
block making machines. For rammed earth walls, steel is available, the wall may not have sufficient green strength
moulds made with 0.6, 1.2, 1.8 m of length are used to form to be stable as the slip formwork is raised upwards. If too
1974 C. Jayasinghe, N. Kamaladasa / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 1971–1976

Table 1
Particle size distribution of soil types
Soil type Particle size >19 mm Gravel % content Sand % content Fines % content (clay and silt) Fines content % – jar test
Sandy 4.3 32.2 59.4 8.4 11
Hard laterite 17.9 56 29.6 14.4 17
Clayey 6.4 50.5 30.4 19.1 23

much water is used, it may hamper the compaction process identical panels tested to determine the average compres-
since the soil may become too sticky. It can also affect the sive strength of rammed earth walls. Characteristic
density to a certain extent. strength of wall panels was determined by Eq. (1) using
According to Bahar et al. [1], the optimum water con- the average or mean strength [15]. For cement stabilized
tent is about 9.5–11.0%. With these moisture contents, a rammed earth walls, wall panel dimensions were deter-
dry density of about 20 kN/m3 was obtained. It is also mined so that slenderness effects will not be predominant.
reported that mechanical stabilization by dynamic compac- The wall thickness is 160 mm. The length was about
tion appear to give better results as compared with static or 1000 mm. The height was selected as about 650 mm. This
vibro-static compaction. Achieving a value as high as pos- gives a slenderness ratio about 4.0. The panels were con-
sible for dry density is considered important since density is structed with three soil types mentioned in Section 4. The
related to strength and durability. panel was tested as shown in Fig. 3. The dial gauges were
There is a simple test that can be used to check the fixed at top and bottom levels of the panel to determine
approximate moisture content called ‘‘drop test’’. A ball the deformation characteristics. The load versus deforma-
is made in the palm using a small sample of soil and then tion curves can be plotted to determine the elastic modulus
it is dropped on to a floor from about 1.0 m height. If it of rammed earth. Chart 1 shows the load–deformation
breaks into 4–5 pieces, the moisture content is satisfactory. curves for three different soil types. Chart 2 explains the
If it crumbles away, the soil is too dry or if it stays as one strength increase with cement percentage.
pat, it is too wet [10]. It should be noted that rammed earth indicated a behav-
Another parameter that can be critical to the strength iour somewhat different to brickwork panels. Brickwork
and durability is the cement content. Since cement is a rel- generally fails at much lower loads than brick compressive
atively costly material, the determination of minimum per- strengths due to interaction between the bricks and mortar
centages required for strength and durability is of [16]. The absence of mortar joints make the failure of
importance. It can also improve the elastic modulus as rammed earth is more of a crushing failure than a tensile
reported by Bahar et al. [1]. Cement stabilization increases failure. Therefore, rammed earth is less likely to give an
the slope of the curve and hence the elastic modulus of the adequate warning in the form of vertical cracks. Hence, it
material increased from 1.89 GPa for unstabilized soil to is recommended to use an adequate factor of safety against
2.51 GPa for 10% cement stabilized soil [1]. failure.
Durability improves considerably with the addition of Once the ultimate load is known, the failure stress can
stabilizers. For walls constructed with 5% cement soil be determined. In this experimental programme both pan-
blocks, no deterioration has been observed in a compre- els gave approximately similar ultimate loads. The average
hensive durability study of stabilized earth [13,14]. failure stress of two panels can be used to determine the
Shrinkage of cement stabilized soil increases rapidly
during first four days and at latter ages the increase is very
slow. Hence, curing for the first four days is very important
in reducing drying shrinkage and cracking. Sand particles
reduce the shrinkage as it opposes the shrinkage movement
[1]. In the construction method adopted, it can be seen that
the maximum length of a wall between block work columns
is limited to 3.6 m and hence shrinkage problems were not
experienced with the model houses constructed.

7. Strength characteristics in compression

One of the most important strength parameters needed

for any load-bearing walling material is compressive
strength. Compressive strength can be determined by using
wall panels. BS 5628: Part 1:1992 [15] allows the use of any
suitable wall panel size when new masonry materials
require the determination of wall strengths. From each
parameter, two panels should be tested. There were two Fig. 3. Wall testing.
 C. Jayasinghe, N. Kamaladasa / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 1971–1976 1975

60 The factor 1.2 is introduced to relate the characteristic

50 value to the mean value. Both Wm and Wu are taken as
Load (tons)

40 1.0 since there are no mortar joints. The average strength

Hard laterite
30 clayey laterite
given in Table 2 is the average of the two values obtained
Sandy laterite for the identical panels. BS 5628: Part 1: 1992 uses this
20
1.2 factor instead of using statistical distribution owing to
10
difficulties of testing large number of panels and also due
0
to the high overall factor of safety used for masonry design.
0 2 4 6 8 10
According to the results obtained for the three different
Vertical deformation (mm)
soil types, sandy soil gave better results for the characteris-
Chart 1. Load deformation characteristics of three types of laterite soil tic strength. This confirms the findings made in University
wall panels. of Bath, United Kingdom [12].
Another important parameter for rammed earth is wet
strength. According to Heathcote [3], the ratio of wet to
fk- Characteristic strength N/mm2

3.5
dry strength is an indicator of durability of earth wall com-
3 ponents. The ratio of wet to dry strength of 0.33–0.50 may
sandy
2.5 be regarded as suitable depending on the severity of the
hard laterite
2
rainfall. In order to determine the wet strength, panels were
clayey
completely immersed in water for 24 h prior to testing. The
1.5 Linear (sandy)
Linear (hard laterite)
wet strengths are indicated in Table 3 for two soil types.
1
Linear (clayey)
Table 4 shows the panels made with even Hard Laterite
0.5 and Clay soils give a ratio more than 0.33. Therefore, the
0
strength of rammed earth walls under adverse conditions
5% 7% 9% 11% will be adequate.
Cement percentage Another useful parameter for structural design purposes
is unit weight. The weight of a wall panel varies from
Chart 2. Variation of characteristic strength with cement percentage. 190 kg to 220 kg. The unit weight of rammed earth is in
the range of 1800–2000 kg/m3. This is the unit weight
characteristic compressive strength using the following for- obtained in many other studies [5]. In single storey con-
mula [15]: struction, the load is primarily from the self weight of the
walls and the portion of the roof supported. This stress is
F k ¼ F m =A  ðWm Wu =1:2Þ ð1Þ
usually in the range of 0.1 N/mm2. This means that charac-
where Fm is the mean of the maximum loads carried by the teristic wall strength required is about 0.5 N/mm2 when a
two test panels; A is the cross sectional area of each panel; factor of safety of 1.4 (cf) is used for dead loads and 3.5
Wm is the reduction factor for strength of mortar; and Wu is (cm) is used for material strength variations and workman-
the unit reduction factor for sample structural strength. ship factors as recommended in BS 5628: Part 1: 1992 [15].
BS 5628: Part 1:1992 also allows the use of cm = 2.5 which
Table 2 will give a lower factor of safety. However, the use of 3.5 is
Average strength of wall panels advisable due to less warning given prior to failure. This
Soil Cement (%) Average strength (N/mm2) fk (N/mm2) gives an overall factor of safety of 5. This is the value rec-
Sandy 6 2.47 2.06 ommended in the New Zealand Standards [17]. The lowest
8 3.525 2.94 characteristic strength obtained from testing was about
10 3.71 3.09
Hard laterite 6 2.03 1.69
8 1.97 1.64 Table 4
10 2.82 2.35 Ratio of wet/dry strength of rammed earth panels
Soil type Cement (%) Dry strength Wet strength Ratio
Clayey 6 1.82 1.52
8 2.06 1.72 Hard laterite 6 2.03 1.30 0.64
10 2.30 1.92 Clayey 6 1.82 0.85 0.46

Table 3
Wet strength results
Soil type Cement (%) Ultimate load (tonnes) Dimensions (mm · mm · mm) Weight (kg) Loaded area (mm2) Strength (N/mm2)
Hard laterite 6 22.5 1080 · 160 · 630 218 172,800 1.30
Clayey 6 14 1030 · 160 · 640 216 164,800 0.85
1976 C. Jayasinghe, N. Kamaladasa / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 1971–1976

1.5 N/mm2 and hence cement stabilized rammed earth can With all these research findings, now it will be possible
be used with a lot of confidence for single storey houses to use cement stabilized rammed earth as a walling material
since the overall factor of safety can be about 15 instead with confidence for single storey houses using laterite soil
of the value of 5 that is usually used. It was shown with generally available in tropical climatic conditions. It can
detailed studies in two storey load-bearing houses for small be a potential material for load-bearing walls of carefully
and carefully planned layouts, the maximum design planned two storey houses.
strengths required can be maintained within 0.8 and
1.0 N/mm2 when the ground floor wall widths are about
250 mm [18]. The characteristic strength values obtained Acknowledgements
indicates that cement stabilized rammed earth could be a
potential material for two storey house construction when The authors thank the engineering staff of Center for
appropriate wall thicknesses are selected. Housing Planning and Building (CHPB), Sri Lanka, for
their fullest cooperation in the experimental programme.
The support given by the technical staff Messers S.P.
8. Load deformation curves
Madanayake, S.L. Kapuruge and H.P. Nandaweera of
Chart 1 indicates a typical load deformation curve Department of Civil Engineering, University of Mora-
obtained for rammed earth panels. It does not indicate tuwa, for the testing programme is gratefully acknowl-
much ductility which can be attributed to compressive edged.
crushing nature of the failure. Thus, the use of a higher fac-
tor of safety is advisable. The strength obtained with later- References
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