Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

University of Cyprus

13th International Conference on Structural Faults and Repair

15 – 17 June 2010, Edinburgh, Scotland
Conference Theme: Early age construction materials + testing

Destructive and non-destructive testing of the

mechanical properties of hand-made adobe bricks
Illampas R.1, Ioannou I.1, Charmpis D.C.1
1
Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Cyprus

Contact Email: rogiros@gmail.com

Abstract
Adobe bricks have been used in the construction of buildings for thousands of years and
are probably one of the first man-made masonry materials. Nowadays, a large heritage of
adobe buildings survives in most regions of the world and represents an essential part of the
international architectural heritage. Considering the importance of early age construction
materials and the cultural significance of earthen architecture it is very important to investigate
the properties and behaviour of adobe bricks.

The first step towards achieving this is to examine the mechanical properties of adobes.
Up to-date, the building regulations and testing standards that are used internationally either
include definitions of scope which exclude unfired clay or assume that masonry units are
comprised of stone, fired clay brick or concrete blocks and therefore give classifications in
relation to the characteristics of these materials. Consequently the current assessment practices
should be examined and testing methods that will account for the specific characteristics of
earth-based materials should be suggested. Through this paper, tests to assess the mechanical
properties of adobe bricks are described and analyzed. In addition, compressive and flexural
strength values that have been obtained from laboratory tests on adobes from Cyprus are
quoted and discussed. Finally, some preliminary results from the application of non-destructive
tests are given.

Keywords: earthen materials, adobe bricks, compressive strength, flexural strength, testing
methodologies.