PSI - Issue 64

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ^ĐŝĞŶĐĞ ŝƌĞĐƚ Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2023) 000 – 000

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Procedia Structural Integrity 64 (2024) 1411–1418

SMAR 2024 – 7 th International Conference on Smart Monitoring, Assessment and Rehabilitation of Civil Structures Earth-based building materials reinforced with flax fibers: an experimental investigation Agostino Walter Bruno a , Mahdi M. K. Zanjani a , Alberto Lagazzo a , Salvatore Polverino b , Domenico Gallipoli a , Antonio Caggiano a,* a Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Chimica e Ambientale, DICCA-UNIGE, via Montallegro 1, 16145, Genova (GE), Italia b Dipartimento di Dipartimento Architettura e Design, DAD-UNIGE, Stradone S. Agostino, 37, 16123 Genova (GE), Italia Abstract Climate change has led to a notable shift towards sustainable design practices within the civil engineering community. In this context, earth-based building materials are particularly advantageous as they are locally sourced, easily recyclable and exhibit low levels of embodied and operational energy. Therefore, this work presents an experimental investigation of compressed earth materials reinforced with natural flax fibers. The primary objective is to investigate the influence of the embedded fibers on both the mechanical and thermal properties of the material with the aim of developing a novel type of masonry earth brick. Samples made of two types of earth (namely, a clayey silt Bouisset and a sandy silt Nagen ), incorporating distinct percentages of fibers, were statically compacted at a target dry density of 1900 kg/m 3 inside a metallic mould with dimensions of 40×40×160 mm 3 . The samples were then subjected to 3-point bending tests and compression tests, as well as thermal conductivity tests. Results indicate that the addition of fibers improves the samples’ compressive and bending strength, especially for the Nagen earth. Instead, the inclusion of fibers has a negligible effect on thermal conductivity and diffusivity. Only for the Bouisset earth, the thermal diffusivity improves with increasing fiber content, thus resulting in faster heat transfers. © 2024 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of SMAR 2024 Organizers Keywords: Rammed earth; Flax fibers; Mechanical Properties; Thermal Properties; Sustainable Materials; Strengths; Thermal Conductivity. © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of SMAR 2024 Organizers

* Corresponding author: Antonio Caggiano Tel.: +39 375 585 4555. E-mail address: antonio.caggiano@unige.it

2452-3216 © 2024 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of SMAR 2024 Organizers

2452-3216 © 2024 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of SMAR 2024 Organizers 10.1016/j.prostr.2024.09.382