Load bearing capacity of rice husk added glass fiber reinforced hollow block wall

A novel hollow concrete block was developed with m30 concrete mix with rice husk ash as a pozzolanic replacement of cement and glass fibre as reinforcing element. The brittle nature and low tensile strength of concrete are well known drawbacks of the material. The ecological footprint of concrete production is also high due to requirement of cement. Addition of siliceous materials with pozzolanic characteristics such as rice husk ash, replace cement and are beneficial to achieve significant cost and ecological savings. Glass fibres are added to prevent the development of micro cracks in concrete and prevent water absorption from surroundings improving the durability of concrete. A detailed experimental study was conducted to determine the change in properties of concrete with the above additions. Hollow concrete blocks were then casted from the optimal mix determined from the conducted experiments. The performance of the hollow concrete blocks with the aforementioned additives was evaluated by load capacity test on a wall constructed with the same. It was compared with the performance of walls made from conventional commercially available blocks.