An Experimental Study on Use of Rice Husk Ash in Stabilized Mud Blocks

In developing countries like India there is acute shortage of housing units, more than 60% of its population is living in sub standard houses, and there are huge demands for low cost building units. Generation of huge quantity of ash causes air pollution and other environmental impacts to nature when disposed off or unscientifically dumped into landfills. Hence there is a strong need to utilize ash in construction applications, effect of Rice husk ash (RHA) in Stabilized mud blocks (SMB) are investigated in this present study. In this experimental investigation, all the ingredient materials such as soil, Granite cutting dust (GCD), cement and RHA are basically tested. The mud blocks are casted by altering the percentage of water content and GCD and then the optimum values are selected. Ordinary Portland cement is replaced by RHA in varying percentage of 10%, 20%, 30% upto 100%. SMB’s are casted by MARDINI block pressing machine. These are selected as optimum combinations. Then these blocks are tested for all engineering properties such as compressive strength, water absorption, and block density. By obtaining these values, results are tabulated, respective graphs are plotted and analyzed. Target wet compressive strength for grade 30 class SMB as per IS 1725-1985 is achieved by stabilizer proportion of 70% cement and 30% RHA.