Correspondence: Dio Ambakederemo Wenapere, Faculty of Engineering, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria

¹is a lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering, Niger Delta University, and a PhD Structural Engineering research fellow at Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

²is a senior lecturer at the Department of Civil Engineering, Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Received 23 January 2009; Revised 23 January 2009.

Abstract

This paper is laboratory test-focused, and reports the results of investigation of the strength and density of sandcrete blocks based on a 1:4 model of the prototype. Two hundred and seventy-one sandcrete block models from four mixed proportions, namely 1:4, 1:6, 1:8 and 1:10, were tested at the ages of 7, 14, 21 and 28 days, with various water–cement ratios. The result revealed the practical correspondence of test values and trends for test values and variational trends for BS 2028 reference characteristics of strength and density, which provide concrete evidence of reproducibility of the prototype physico-mechanical behaviour under load by its one-quarter structural model. The possibility of application of scaled-down wall models containing model block units will reduce requirements of laboratory space and loading equipment, thus widening the scope of research on the structural resistance mechanism of sandcrete blockwalls.