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Abstract:
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At this era of energy crisis and resource depletion, availability
of conventional materials throughout the year in quantity and quality,
pose a hectic problem for the builders. Adding fuel to the fire, the
demand of these materials increases day by day, since the housing
and habitat requirements exponentially increase time to time. There is
an international concern over this crisis and researchers are
reorienting themselves, so as to evolve appropriate masonry units,
using locally available cheap materials and technology. The concept
of green material and construction has been well conceived in the
research so that marginal materials and unskilled labour can be
employed for the mass production of building blocks. In this context,
considering earth as a sustainable material, there is a growing interest
in the use of it, as a modern construction material. Solid waste
management is one of the current major environmental concerns in
our country. Our country is left with millions of cubic metre of waste
plastics. One of the methods to satisfactorily address this solid waste
management and the environmental issues is to suitably accommodate
the waste in some form (as fibres). Their employability in block making
in the form of fibres (plastic fibre- mud blocks) can be investigated
through a fundamental research. Also, the review of the existing
literature shows that most studies on natural fibres are focussed on cellulose based/ vegetable fibres obtained from renewable plant
resources except in very few cases, where animal fibre, plastic fibre
and polystyrene fabric were used.
At this context, for the plastic fibre-mud blocks to be more
widely applicable, a systematic quantification of the relevant physical
and mechanical properties of the fibre masonry units is crucial, to
enable an objective evaluation of the composite material’s response to
actual field condition. This research highlights the salient
observations from the detailed investigation of a systematic study on
the effect of embedded fibres, made of plastic wastes on the
performance of stabilised mud blocks. |