Preliminary Investigation into Mechanical Properties of Clay Reinforced with Natural

Nowadays natural materials are popular and favoured in civil engineering. At the same time it is important to use renewable and local materials which have low CO2 production. One of these materials is clay reinforced with natural fibres. For production purpose it is necessary to find the natural fibres which have suitable properties and can be grown in large amounts. This kind of fibre is flax, which produces a strong fibre. The article focuses on flax as a reinforcing natural fibre in clay which can be used for walls and undercoat plasters. Flax is milled to fractions with different length and mixed with clay, sand and water. Dried clay mix cubeʹs compressive strength is measured. Finally the best fraction as for flax length and amount is suggested for future experiments to find out the best fraction of fibres for clay with good compressive strength.