Compressive strength of rice husk stabilized termite hill soil

Abstract

Termite hills are described as the structure built by termite using soil in the surrounding or within the earth. The mound has extremely hard walls constructed from bits of soil cemented with saliva and baked by the sun. This research is to determine the compressive strength of termite hill soil stabilized with rice husk. The study investigated the compressive strength of 150 mm x 150 mm x 150 mm cubes made from termite hill soil and rice husk in the different mix ratio of 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, 80:20, 100:0 and was cured for 28 d with crushing the cubes at 7 d interval. The weight, bulk density and dry density of the cubes at different THS/RH mix ratio ages were determined. Test results showed that the compressive strength of the cubes increases with age and increases with decrease in percentage of rice husk. However, the mix ratio of 50:50 has the least compressive strength of 0.4800 MN/mm2 while the mix ratio of 80:20 has the highest compressive strength of 0.9244 MN/mm2 compared to mix of 100% termite hill soil. The mean weight is 5.18 and 5.90 kg after 7 days for 50:50 and 100: 0 mixes respectively while the mean weight is 3.90 and 5.34 kg on the 28 d for the same mixes. The mean weight of the cubes increases with decrease in the proportion of RH in the mix within the same curing day but decreases with age of the cubes. Termite hill soil seems to be promising as a suitable, locally available housing material for farm structure.