Design and Development of a Large-Scale Compressed Earth Block Building System for Developed Countries

摘要

Building designers must approach energy, economic, and environmental considerations in a holistic manner including resource consumption during construction, energy use during occupancy, and the environmental impact due to procuring, manufacturing, and disposal of materials. The Texas Tech Mechanical Engineering Department, Civil Engineering Department, and College of Architecture have been working with EarthCo Building Systems to develop a comprehensive building system for efficient construction using compressed earth blocks (CEBs). The main components of the system are a power plant, hydraulic system, pressure plate assembly, extrusion chamber, shear mechanism, and controller that are used for extrusion of the blocks as well as accompanying lifting device and trailer. By scaling up the production and placement of CEB blocks, manual labor and production time can be minimized, and CEB technology can be made competitive with traditional building technologies.