EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON MUD BRICK WALSL WITH MORTAR CONTAINING STRAW FIBERS UNDER DIAGONAL TENSION

This study presents an experimental investigation on mud brick walls with mortar containing straw bers under diagonal axial compression. The brick size was: 22227 cm (facebedend). The average compressive strength of the bricks was 4.73 MPa. To determine the performance of straw bers in the mortar of mud brick wall, 12 walls, with size 12012022 cm, with various percentages of straw bers (0/4, 0/6, 0/8, 1 and 1/2), were investigated. For evaluation of failure modes in ultimate diagonal compressive load, types of crack, load capacity and ductility, and energy absorption characteristics, were studied. Cracks in specimens with mortar reinforced by straw bers have less width than unreinforced mortar. The ultimate load capacities of walls reinforced with various percentages of straw bers (0/4, 0/6, 0/8, 1 and 1/2), were obtained as 20.3, 21.05, 20.7 and 18.5 kN, respectively. The average load capacitiy was increased about 26.78% compared to the unreinforced mortar wall in the ultimate load. The result shows that energy absorption in reinforced mortar specimens increased about 94.22 percent. Ultimate displacement for the unreinforced walls was 23.1 and for reinforced walls with 0/8% straw ber in mortar was 34.8mm. It shows that ultimate displacement increased about 51 percent. Test results show that straw bers can be used for reinforcing the mortar of mud brick walls, which is an advantage both economically and in enhancing structural behavior. In this study, when the straw bers were increased to 0.8 percent in the mortar, the load carrying capacity was increased more than any other percentage of ber in the mortar.