The Evaluation of Engineering Properties of Low Cost Concrete Blocks by Partial Doping of Sand with Sawdust: Low Cost Sawdust Concrete Block

The main objective of the article is to reduce the quantity of sand with the natural agro waste materials and the performance of sawdust-sand-cement stabilized using sawdust (SD) and cement which investigates the water retention (WR), compressive quality (CQ) and flexural quality (FQ) of the sawdust-sand-cement blocks to find out the conceivable utilization of sawdust as an incomplete substitution of sawdust in blocks creation. For this purpose, various combinations of sawdust, sand, cement, water-content and drying time to create testing blocks. The compressive and flexural qualities of the sawdust-sand-cement blocks were determined using a universal testing machine, as they just cracked due to compression. The greatest compressive and flexural strength of 193 kg.cm-2 and 2.34 kg.cm-2 were recorded at 0% doping at 28th day. However, the most extreme estimation of 106 kg.cm-2 and 1.29 kg.cm-2 for 15% doping is discovered reasonable and prescribed for building development having been achieved at a 28th days compressive and flexural quality which is less than the Sri Lankan Standards (SLS). However, the 15% doping blocks have water retention of 12.4% at 28th days that is the minimum requirement for the block according to the Sri Lankan Standards (SLS). Therefore, these sawdust-sand-cement blocks were found to be weak for medium and heavy building constructions, because of its low density, light weight, low strength. Thus, these sawdust-sand-cement blocks can be used for interior wall partition and decorations. The sawdust-sand-cement block manufacturing procedure being simple can be undertaken as rural entrepreneurship by unskilled labors of developing countries.