“How much reinforcement do straight wall earthbag buildings need for earthquakes?
Engineers can’t tell without test results. Until this year no one has tested earthbag on a shake table, since full-size testing could cost between $10,000 and $15,000 USD.
Nikul Vadgama from the University of Bath has completed one of the most extensive reports so far on earthbag building. In order for earthbag to enter mainstream building practice, engineering tests and analysis like this are needed by engineers, architects and code officials.
Test description: Shear strength of plastered 4′ x 4’/ 1.2 x 1.2 m bag wall (15″ / 38 cm thick) of weak cohesive soil with barbed wire; Materials: solid poly bags, tamped subsoils of silt and clay, lime and earthen plaster Abstract: Earthbag is a growing sustainable building technique that is increasingly desired in the … Read more
More testing info from Patti Stouter: What’s so important about New Zealand’s earth building standards? Well, no one else has based earth building guidelines on so much testing. And recently earthquakes in New Zealand (including a magnitude 7.1) proved how well these standards keep buildings safe. Engineers visited 14 adobe and rammed earth buildings to … Read more
Here’s Patti Stouter’s report on her earthbag shear test. The quick way to find out how to build strong enough for earthquakes? Hundreds of thousands of dollars for earthbag testing to university engineering departments. I’m helping one US university seeking grants just for earthbag, and I’m looking myself as well. Email me at simple_earth@yahoo.com to … Read more
With the help of Patti Stouter, I have revised the index page for available test data and reports at www.earthbagbuilding.com. Instead of just links to half a dozen existing test reports that are specific to earthbags, there are now references and links to over three dozen such reports, many of which relate to other types … Read more