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Norfolk rammed earth course

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Last week me (Ásgeir), David and Shea went to a course in rammed earth building in Norfolk, England. This course is conducted by Michael Thompson, see info on http://www.rammed-earth.org. This gave us further insight into the rammed earth technique and valuable first hand experience. It was also interesting to meet others who share interest in this method for different reasons. It can be about cost, aesthetics, health or availability of material and expertise in different cultural contexts. We used our in between time to sketch molds, plan the coming months and being tourists in Norfolk.

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Compressive Test

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Hej! We had a long break but we are back. I made laboratory tests at the GeoLab at Chalmers University of Technology. First I made sedimentation tests, and then I selected a soil suitable to ram, it was amazing to achieve a compressive strength of 1.8 N/mm2, is still low I know, but is not so far from the strength required in rammed earth buildings, around 2-4 N/mm2. Lets remember that the soil was not modified from its original state, no aggregates were added for this experiments. Interesting!

-David

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Rammed Earth Sample – Video

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Hej igen! EarthLab finally found some clay near Chalmers, so we filled up some buckets and started with the process of ramming earth! The soil is not modified from its natural condition in this example. There are many ways of doing these tests, better ways for sure; but this is for EarthLab a good opportunity to have fun and understand the material. What we used is a carton board as a mould, the first times Shea almost broke the mould because of the force when ramming, in the future we will experiment with ABS pipes or stronger materials. So here is a short video of the process, hope you enjoy it and leave some comments!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzalgvAKc8A&feature=youtu.be