Anyway, I have been busy on the project, but the dirt work did not get finished. One reason for this, is that I had to make blocks for testing. According to the New Mexico Earthen Building Materials Code, two tests must be performed on the blocks being used for building: the compressive strength test and the modulus of rupture. Each of these tests is to be performed on five randomly chosen blocks.
The soil on our building site is just on the edge of acceptability for compressed earth block, so am testing blocks made of the native soil and blocks made from a 50/50 mixture of the native soil and crusher fines (what is left over when quarries crush rock and then grade it out to piles of different size gravel). Each of these groups is again broken down into unstabalized blocks, which containing no portland cement, and stabilized blocks which contain 6-8% by volume portland cement (the latter can be used in contact with moisture; on this project they may end up being driveway pavers or sidewalks). So, if my math is correct, I have four different groups of block for each of the two tests. That ends up being 40 blocks.
Most of these I made at the end of the day on October 20th. The follow are pictures of the block press in action and some blocks on a pallet. I will take pictures of the tests, which are scheduled to take place tomorrow, and hopefully will have them available for posting next week (this time no promises).
1 comment:
I know you must be working hard on this based on the presence of a camelback in the picture. Those blocks look solid to me, but what do I know.
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