The influence of natural stabilizers and natural fibres on the mechanical properties of ancient Roman adobe bricks

Adobe is a construction technique that uses raw clayey earth mixed and moulded to form blocks to realize a bearing wall. Romans were also used to add sand or coarse sand into the mixture to “degrease” clay and to allow to make it into a mixture. Fibres such as straw were often added into the mixture. Anyway, ancient home brick-makers have not had a chance to do scientific experimental investigation on the balance of ingredients and the optimisation of this production. This paper elaborates on how workability and mechanical properties of Roman ancient adobe earthen bricks change by varying the percentage of an on situ soil, straw and coarse sand into the mixture to produce them. The comparisons were also made with the only-earth samples. Breaking manners of all the samples were also compared.