DTU Working Paper: WP38 - Soil Testing for Soil-Cement Block Preparation
D. Gooding (1993)
This working paper describes how to test soils to determine their suitability for use in soil-cement building blocks. Several reports covering this topic have been published over the last twenty years by a variety of organisations. This paper provides a brief description of the effects of soil properties on the handlability of blocks during moulding and the performance of the blocks after curing. It then undertakes a practical critique of the published tests for selecting soil, and for determining how much cement should be added to them, identifying a number of ambiguities, difficulties of performance and actual error in them. It concludes with recommended testing plans and three appendices. Appendix A describes selected procedures for field-testing soils to be used for block making, Appendix B describes laboratory test procedures: in both appendices the shortcomings identified earlier have been corrected. Appendix C is a bibliography.
Note: scan of the original document.
