Abstract:
Mortar as a building component has been in use in Nigeria and many nations for a very long time. However, the high and increasing cost of the constituent materials has contributed to the non-realization of adequate housing for both urban and rural dwellers in many African countries. But, mortar like any typical building component, has properties that are used for their classification, quality determination and hence, their application. In this research, tests were performed on mortar blocks containing cement and sand in varying mix proportions, i.e. mix ratios of 1:4, 1:3, 1:2 and 1:1 and water/cement ratios of 0.75, 0.66, 0.44 and 0.38, respectively (CEMEX mortars testing) were used to determine the effect of sand (i.e. Opi river sand and Obimo sand in Nsukka) on compressive strength of mortar blocks.
A total of 48 mortar blocks (i.e. 24 mortar blocks from Opi river sand and 24 from Obimo sand) were tested to determine the effect of sand on compressive strength. The tests include sieve analysis, compressive strength and specific gravity. The main variables in this investigation were the sand and mix proportions. All tests were carried out in accordance with the British Standards.
For the mortar samples, the tests results showed that, depending on the mix proportions, the mortars have different compressive strengths. The test results also indicated that the improvement in these engineering properties (i.e. compressive strength) of the mortars increased as the ratio of sand to cement decreased. This shows that, the more of sand added to the same quantity of cement, the lower the compressive strength of mortar.
