Theoretical framework

Mud is a versatile building material used for thousands of years to create structures, molded as bricks
for walls and tiles for roofing. This is particularly done in extremely hot & dry countries. The traditional
way of making mud bricks is by mixing mud and water and adding straw as a way to hold things
together, it is then shaped and left under the sun to dry. Though the outcome may be used as building
material it can only last for so long as rain can easily soften and weaken the brick thus needing repairing
and re construction. This may be because the mixture which is the straw is not sufficient enough to
make a quality brick.

A study performed by Fabraj Al-ajmi and his team which is about the effects of different mud brick
ingredients on strength, durability, and absorption. In this study they used different ingredients in their
mud brick mixture, they used sand, lime,steel fibers, and hey. All were tested and from their experiment
they observed that the ingrediient mixed with the mud affects it’s stength and over all durability. This
study is similar to ours as we are trying to know which mixture for our mud roof is the most effective,
which also includes it’s durability. From their study which states that the ingredient has an effect on the
bricks durability we can use their statement to help answer our problem, by choosing ingrediients to be
mixed with mud which could produce a durable material used for roofing. From this we formulated a
hypothesis which is the durability of the mud roof is determined by what ingredient it is mixed with.