Drying, cracks and shrinkage evolution of a natural silt intended for a new earth building material. Impact of reinforcement

Series of drying tests are carried out on natural silt intended for the preparation of new raw earth concrete. This technique is different from rammed earth. The study treats the drying of various formulations of the natural silt with and without reinforcement. No binders were added to highlight the impact of reinforcement. Global and local deformation around a single crack are analysed using image processing. Adding reinforcements to natural silt reduces the percentage of cracking by a factor around 10. The suction is derived from water content corresponding to crack appearance and correlated to the ultimate resistance of the material. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.