TY - JOUR
T1 - Modern earth masonry
T2 - Structural properties and structural design
AU - Heath, Andrew
AU - Maskell, Daniel
AU - Walker, Pete
AU - Lawrence, Mike
AU - Fourie, Clyde
PY - 2012/4/30
Y1 - 2012/4/30
N2 - There has been recent increased use of earth for construction of buildings in developed countries, largely because of concerns with the environmental impact and embodied carbon from fi red bricks and cement-based products. Of all forms of earth construction, the widest impact on modern construction is likely to come from commercially produced unfi red earth masonry where large-scale production can signifi cantly reduce costs. While there are benefi ts to using earth masonry, structural design with earth masonry raises some specifi c issues that are not necessarily relevant to other forms of masonry construction. This paper summarises these issues and presents results of extensive structural testing on modern earth masonry. The structural properties required for design are compared with typical values for other masonry types in Eurocode 6, showing that commercially produced earth masonry can meet or even exceed the structural capacity of other commonly used masonry systems.
AB - There has been recent increased use of earth for construction of buildings in developed countries, largely because of concerns with the environmental impact and embodied carbon from fi red bricks and cement-based products. Of all forms of earth construction, the widest impact on modern construction is likely to come from commercially produced unfi red earth masonry where large-scale production can signifi cantly reduce costs. While there are benefi ts to using earth masonry, structural design with earth masonry raises some specifi c issues that are not necessarily relevant to other forms of masonry construction. This paper summarises these issues and presents results of extensive structural testing on modern earth masonry. The structural properties required for design are compared with typical values for other masonry types in Eurocode 6, showing that commercially produced earth masonry can meet or even exceed the structural capacity of other commonly used masonry systems.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84861089209&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.istructe.org/webtest/files/60/6093d338-aa24-4ff8-8de5-99bc757940f8.pdf
M3 - Article
SN - 1466-5123
VL - 90
SP - 38
EP - 44
JO - The Structural Engineer
JF - The Structural Engineer
IS - 4
ER -