Manufacturing of Hempcrete building block

Hemp (Cannabis sativa) is an agricultural crop that can be used as a building material in combination with lime and cement. A composite building material that combines a cementitious binder (building limes and cement) with hemp shives, the woody core of the hemp stalk is generally referred to as hemp concrete (HC). However, industrial facilities to separate hemp shives and fibres are currently not available in India. HC has many advantages as a building material but it is not load-bearing and must be used in combination with a load-bearing RCC frame. The aim of this research was to evaluate the feasibility of using both hemp shives and fibres in a HC to determine an optimal mix of the different binding agents and to investigate if adding cement binder would improve the mechanical strength of the material. The effects on compressive strength of pre-mixing the binder or creating perforations in the test specimens were also investigated.