Lightweight fiber-reinforced clay as a sustainable material for disaster resilient architecture of future buildings

Resilience against natural disasters, such as earthquakes, has been considered as an important goal in sustainable development in recent years. On the other hand, today, sustainability is considered as a main aim in modern architecture. In spite of these facts, the role of sustainable architecture in increasing the resilience of buildings and cities against disastrous events has not been thoroughly discussed so far. In this paper a new natural-base, low cost, eco-friendly and lightweight fiber-reinforced clay (LFRC) material, with high heat, sound and moisture insulation capability, is introduced which its employment can remarkably increase the resilience of buildings against earthquakes. To obtain mechanical properties of the proposed LFRC material, an experimental study was done by conducting a series of tests to measure its bending, shear and compressive strengths. Tests results show that the proposed material has much higher strengths comparing to plain clay and also clay reinforced by some other previously used fibers. The density of the LFRC material is around 1.37 which is less than 75% of the dried plain clay. Building’s components made of the LFRC material can be very helpful for creation of movable partitions or floors/ceilings as well as smart furniture to achieve flexible architecture of special buildings, which is considered as a must in today’s architecture in seismic regions. Because of the relatively high strength and integrity of the LFRC material its usage as the main body of masonry elements, such as load bearing walls in small rural houses and dwellings can also be recommended.