Mechanical Properties of Reinforced Mud Bricks

Earth construction has been successfully practiced for millennia in many parts of the world, including Sudan. The authors believe that this form of construction can be readily upgraded, and that it represents a sustainable, viable alternative that avoids the use of energy intensive, high carbon content materials. This study investigates the response of fibre-reinforced mud bricks under loading. The fibre sources investigated include chicken feathers and sugarcane bagasse. Extensive compression tests were carried out on representative brick samples incorporating these materials for the purpose of understanding the effect of fibre content on the properties of modified mud bricks. Three empirically-derived relations for different fibre types are proposed. These relations include stress-strain curves that take into account limit state and compressive strengths for fibre-reinforced mud bricks, plus empirical correlation between the brick strength, brick density and fibre content, to be used in future design procedures. The developed relations are suitable for use in commercially available finite element software packages such as ABAQUS. The findings presented demonstrate that sugarcane bagasse and chicken feathers fibres are feasible options for mud brick reinforcement.