[Cob] cob and earthquakes

[Kyle Towers]

    No, I didn't misplace a decimal point.  You have missed the point
entirely.  We are specifically discussing tensile strength.  The 300-400 psi
unstabilized and 1500 psi stabilized figures are for compressive strength.
Compressive strength is good and sufficient in a static situation.  But
tensile strength is required to resist bending in a dynamic one.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Buckaroo Bonzai" <tsuchimono at yahoo.com>
To: "Kyle Towers" <ktowers at locl.net>
Cc: <coblist at deatech.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 3:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Cob] cob and earthquakes


> Kyle's right about Menke's book, but way off on psi of
> compressed earth bricks and of earthquakeness of
> earthen structures.
>
> > The most likely source of hard numbers is Earth
> > Construction Handbook: The
> > Building Material Earth in Modern Architecture by
> > Gernot Minke, which I see
> > is now up to $76.
>
>
> > A company with a block press, using
> > 4000psi forming pressure, is  bragging about getting
> 100psi.
>
> Looks like Kyle is off a decimal point.
>
> Without adding any stablizers a normal strenth is 300
> to 400 psi, good enough for the National Building
> Code.  With stabilitizer you can get up to 1500 psi or
> more.