Laboratoire de Géomatériaux et des technologies de l’habitat, UFR des sciences de la terre et des ressources minières, Université Felix Houphouet Boigny Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire, BP 582 Abidjan 22, Côte d’Ivoire
The development of the city of Abidjan in recent years has led to an explosion in the number of buildings. However, hygrothermal comfort in these buildings leaves much to be desired. These buildings therefore consume large amounts of energy to restore comfort. This energy expenditure contributes to global warming through the emission of greenhouse gases. The aim of this study is to check whether buildings in the city of Abidjan are constructed with the climate in mind. To achieve this objective, a bioclimatic study of the city of Abidjan was carried out using the Mahoney and Szokolay methods. The recommendations made by the bioclimatic analysis are then compared with the characteristics of the buildings encountered in the field. The bioclimatic studies carried out during this study and superimposed on the characteristics of the buildings encountered in the field show that the orientation of the buildings encountered in the field in the three municipalities studied was different from that recommended by the bioclimatic study. The construction of the various buildings did not take into account the elements of the climate in order to achieve thermal comfort with low energy consumption. To overcome these problems, a set of recommendations derived from the bioclimatic study was proposed.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the base layers on road are generally made from lateritic soils which must respect specification in order to guarantee its quality. Unfortunately, most of the road bases made with lateritic soils from the sedimentary basin degrade early. This investigation aims to determine the geotechnical characteristics of the natural lateritic soils from sedimentary basin used for road construction to understand the reasons for their early degradation. Thus, soils from Songon and Samo were subjected to tests, to know their intrinsic properties. Particle size distribution, Atterberg limits and methylene blue test, modified Proctor, California Bearing Ratio (CBR), and chemical and mineralogical tests were performed. The soils of Samo and Songon contain appreciable quantities of iron and aluminum oxides and silica, but small quantities of titane, manganese and magnesium oxides. They are mainly composed of kaolinite and quartz. Furthermore, they are massive consisted of sand packed in fine matrix (49 % and 46 %) for soil of Samo and (62 % and 33 %) for soil of Songon but no gravel. The dry densities, the optimum moisture content and CBR at 95 % of maximum dry density obtained for the soil of Samo and Songon are respectively 1.83; 15.2 %, 24 % and 1.88; 16.7 %, 20 %. These soils are not suitable for use as base layers on road because they are still in a primary stage of lateritic soils formation.