Earthen buildings are strong in compression, but need help against tension or bending stresses. The barbed wire and vertical rebar in earthbag add important tensile strength.
More than 50 earthbag buildings in Nepal have recently survived 0.5- >0.7g of earthquake motion. This same motion destroyed poorly reinforced and unreinforced masonry buildings around them, mud block and brick alike.
I just found this earthbag shelter for street children in Boudha, Nepal. That’s pretty much all I know about this project. Maybe one of our readers can fill us in on the details.
We’ve posted quite a few blog posts over the years about how to reinforce earthbag buildings. Due to the earthquake in Nepal, we’re getting lots of questions about reinforced earthbag methods for earthquake regions. The following list will save people lots of time searching our blog and websites. Watch for more news on this topic in the future.
Yesterday I wrote to the two largest industry associations that are related to earthbag building — the Geosynthetics Society and the Textile Bag and Packaging Association. The Geosynthetics Society is the professional organization that represents engineers who design large earthbag projects for highways, railroads, erosion control, mining, marine facilities and many other industrial applications. The Textile Bag and Packaging Association represents manufacturers of bags and tubes that in addition to earthbag building are used for many purposes such as grain and feed bags, cement, etc. Both of these industries are poised to capitalize on a rapidly emerging new market in earthbag building.
“The hard-hit district is losing hope despite being so close to the capital. The Arniko Highway coils eastwards from Kathmandu towards the Chinese border at Kodari. Every settlement, every bazar, every village along the way has been flattened.
How to build an earth bag house in rural Nepal at Her Farm
Posted by Scott MacLennan on Tuesday, 14 May 2013
“This is how we built an earthbag house in a village in Nepal. It’s cheap and easy to do.