Seismic evaluation of compressed earth blocks using acoustic waves: Case of Chichaoua Taroudant
Abderrahmane Jouhar, Mohammed Cherraj, Mokhfi Takarli, Fatima Allou, Driss El Hachmi
Abstract. Compressed earth blocks (CEB), also referred to as BTC, are long-used earthen materials valued for durability and energy efficiency. On 8 September, Morocco was struck by a devastating earthquake that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and severely affected the provinces of Al-Haouz, Chichaoua, and Taroudant, leading to the suspension of educational activities in roughly 40 municipalities. To better understand how local materials behave under seismic demand, raw soils were sampled in the village of Amskrdad within the impacted Chichaoua-Taroudant region and used to fabricate an unstabilized compressed earth brick representative of local practice. The mechanical response was then probed by inducing ultrasonic waves along the x- and y-axes to measure pulse velocity and time of flight (TOF), from which the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was computed for each record. Tests carried out on a Pundit PL200 (Proceq) in fully non-destructive mode yielded an elasticity modulus of 2819.92 MPa and a Poisson’s ratio of 0.27. They enhance our understanding of stiffness and lateral strain behavior of CEB under seismic loading and offer practical data on the structural reliability of traditional earth construction in seismically active regions.
Keywords
Compressed Earth Block, Ultrasound, Vulnerability, Seismic
Published online 1/10/2026, 7 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Abderrahmane Jouhar, Mohammed Cherraj, Mokhfi Takarli, Fatima Allou, Driss El Hachmi, Seismic evaluation of compressed earth blocks using acoustic waves: Case of Chichaoua Taroudant, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 58, pp 40-46, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644903933-6
The article was published as article 6 of the book Emerging Research in Materials for Environment, and Civil Infrastructure
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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