Compressive strength of mortar with addition of sawdust

The use of wood as a building material in the construction or other building elements results in the emergence of wood waste that has not been fully utilized, in the form of sawdust. One way to use wood industrial waste is to use it as a building material. In this study, industrial wood waste (sawdust) was used as a partial substitute for sand in building materials in the form of cement mortar. This study aims to determine the effect of adding sawdust of kala-kala wood to cement mortar on its compressive strength. The composition ratio of the mixture between cement and sand used was 1:3, with a water-cement ratio (FAS) of 0.6. The variations of sawdust used in the admixture are 0%, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10% of the sand weight. The results showed that the compressive strength of cement mortar with sawdust composition to substitute the sand resulted in decreased trends when the sawdust percentage was increased. However, the use of sawdust as a filling material in cement mortar will greatly affect the decrease of its compressive strength, sawdust still can be used to substitute the sand in mortar mixture with optimum percentages of 2% to 8%.