Soil characterization for adobe mixtures containing Portland cement as stabilizer

ABSTRACT One of the most economical ways to build with soil is to use adobe technique. There are several types of soils and most of them are not suitable for using to construct buildings. Physical and chemical characteristics of the soils will influence on its performance to use for buildings. This work aims to characterize physically, chemically and mineralogically two soil samples and study the dosage of mixtures for adobe using Portland cement as stabilizer. It was studied three different Portland cement content (6%, 9% and 12%) in the soil. The results showed that compressive strength of up to 5 MPa at 28 days for both type of soils studied with 12% of Portland cement. In addition, a comparison between two methods used for the particle size analysis of the soils. It was observed that the results differed in each method analysis. Overall this work has shown that to use these soils for adobe bricks, 9% of Portland cement is enough to reach the minimum compressive strength required by standard. Furthermore, this research brings results about the determination of the clay content of the soil, indicating that the traditional method to determine the size distribution curve by sieving and sedimentation may not be the most suitable to check this clay content.