Influence of Palm Oil Mesocarp Fibres on the Thermal Properties of Cement-Stabilized Compressed Earth–Based Brick

The harsh tropical climatic conditions and rapid deterioration of building strictly from soil have rendered one billion people in developing countries homeless. To alleviate this situation the effect of Palm oil mesocarp fibres was investigated on the thermal properties of cement-stabilized earth brick. Fibres were extracted and pretreated with warm distilled water at 100 °C diluted with 2% NaOH and oven dry at 105 °C for 24 hours. Sedimentary test, grain size, and elementary Analysis were conducted on the soil resulting in clayey soil which has a good insulation property. The soil was stabilized with 10% cement by mass reinforced with fibres. Nine different samples formulation of ten each were made with fibres content 0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75%, 1%, 1.25%, 1.5%, 2%, and 2.5% using a mold of size (100×100×50) mm and cured for 28 days. Thermal effusivity, volume calorific capacity, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusivity of the samples were investigated using the tiny hot plate method and a computing algorithm estimation error. It resulted that the thermal effusivity, volume calorific capacity, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusivity were 2.18242×103 J/M2K1/2 to 1.02716×103 J/M2K1/2, 2.64×106 J/M3K to 1.23×106 J/M3K, 1.81 W/mK to 0.82 W/Mk and 7.05×10-7 m2s-1 to 6.83×10-7 m2s-1 respectively with an optimal yield at 2.5% fibres concentration.