Physical, mechanical and thermal evaluation of mixtures soil-cement added of rice husk ash without pozzolanic effect

The environmental concern related to the indiscriminate extraction of Brazilian natural resources and the ceaseless agricultural and industrial waste generation became a serious problem demanding for a quick solution. So this work was done in order to minimize the environment degradation by accomplishing study of mixtures made of sandy soil-cement- rice husk ash through physical, mechanical and thermal tests. For this purpose, the different mixtures of soil-cement-rice husk ash were tested the specimens molded at the optimum moisture content. Afterwards 7 days old they were submitted to compression tests, to water absorption tests, to durability tests; to ultrasonic pulse velocity tests; to thermal conductivity tests and to specific heat tests. The obtained results showed that the sandy soil partially substituted by 7,5% of ash and stabilized with 10% and 13% of cement pointed out its promising use as an alternative material for use in both rural and urban constructions.