Structural Behavior of Story-High Cement-Stabilized Rammed-Earth Walls under Compression
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 3
Abstract
A rammed-earth wall is a monolithic construction made by compacting processed soil in progressive layers in a rigid formwork. There is a growing interest in using this low-embodied-carbon building material in buildings. The paper investigates the strength and structural behavior of story-high cement-stabilized rammed-earth (CSRE) walls, reviews literature on the strength of CSRE, and discusses results of the compressive strength of CSRE prisms, wallettes, and story-high walls. The strength of the story-high wall was compared with the strength of wallettes and prisms. There is a nearly 30% reduction in strength as the height-to-thickness ratio increases from about 5 to 20. The ultimate compressive strength of CSRE walls predicted using the tangent modulus theory is in close agreement with the experimental values. The shear failures noticed in the story-high walls resemble the shear failures of short-height prism and wallette specimens. The paper ends with a discussion of structural design and characteristic compressive strength of CSRE walls.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 23 • Issue 3 • March 2011
Pages: 240 - 247
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 17, 2009
Accepted: Jul 9, 2010
Published online: Jul 27, 2010
Published in print: Mar 1, 2011
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