Investigation of thermal inertia and hydric properties of an eco-building material: compressed stabilized earth blocks

Influence of Particle Size on Compressed Earth Blocks Properties and Strategies for Enhanced Performance

“…Considering the discussion presented so far, future studies will be focused on modelling the The estimated thermal characteristics fall within the intervals reported in the literature. Thermal conductivity values for unfired stabilised CEBs generally range between 0.40 and 1.20 W/mK, heat capacity between 870 and 1180 J/kgK, and thermal diffusivity between 3.02 × 10 −7 and 4.82 × 10 −7 m 2 /s [39,45]. Consistent with previous studies on earth-based building materials [7,[46][47][48][49][50], the observed trend is a decrease in thermal conductivity in blocks with lower bulk density (Figure 8).…”

“…The grams of water absorbed by capillarity are proportional to the square root of time [45]. The graph in Figure 11 shows this relationship, averaging the results obtained in the three samples tested per mixture.…”

“…After 10 min, the water absorbed per unit area by the two mixtures is virtually identical. The greater slope of the initial section indicates that water absorption by capillarity is faster in the first few minutes [45]. Only later does it become less important, and a reduction in the slope curves can be observed.…”

“…This is particularly evident in R2 CEBs, indicating their lower water absorption capacity. For a more immediate comparison, a single value can be obtained by considering the angular coefficient of the straight line passing between the capillarity coefficients at 10 min and 5 h [45]. This number, denoted as C b , along with the dry bulk density (γ d ) and the electrical resistivity (ρ) measured at the end of the capillarity test on saturated blocks, is reported in Table 9.…”