Prediction of Ultimate Compressive Strength for Biopolymer-bound Soil Composites (BSC) Using Sliding Wingtip Crack Analysis

Published

July 24, 2019

Author(s)

Edward Garboczi, Isamar Rosa, Michael Lepech, David Loftus, Henning Roedel, Maria Allende

Abstract

This paper introduces a damage-based model for determining the compressive strength of Biopolymer- bound Soil Composites (BSC), a novel class of bio-based construction composites that are produced through the mixture and desiccation of biopolymers with inorganic aggregates. A damage-based sliding wingtip crack model is used, in conjunction with experimental results from mechanical testing and X-ray micro-computed tomography image analysis, to predict the response of BSC materials under uniaxial compression. The methodology explores a range of mixture designs with varying biopolymer solution content. This methodology extends existing mixture design methodologies for BSC materials based on maximum bulk density of the soil phase.

Citation

Engineering Fracture Mechanics

Volume

218

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2019.106570

Local Download

Keywords

biomaterial, biopolymer, composite, soil, micro-computed tomography, image segmentation, wingtip crack

Citation

Garboczi, E. , Rosa, I. , Lepech, M. , Loftus, D. , Roedel, H. and Allende, M. (2019), Prediction of Ultimate Compressive Strength for Biopolymer-bound Soil Composites (BSC) Using Sliding Wingtip Crack Analysis, Engineering Fracture Mechanics, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2019.106570, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927149 (Accessed October 6, 2025)