ABSTRACT
Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) are historically local masonry building materials. Nowadays, they are getting more and more attention by the sustainable building community. However, there is still no consensus on the procedure to be adopted to measure the mechanical properties of this material. Thus, a comprehensive study on the measurement of mechanical properties of CEB was conducted, such as compressive strength, tensile strength, elastic modulus and fracture energy. Regarding the measurement of the compressive strength, block units and cubes with two different edge lengths (40 mm and 70 mm), under various contact states between the specimen and the platen of the testing machine (capped with rubber, plywood and without capping) were tested. The results show that the whole block capped with rubber is the appropriate procedure to obtain the real compressive strength. Furthermore, there is an abnormal size effect on the compressive strength, i.e., less resistance with smaller specimen. It is due to the fact that the cubes cut from the whole block were damaged during the cutting process.
