[Cob] Are you willing

[Shannon Dealy]

On Thu, 10 May 2007, Shody Ryon wrote:

> Thanks Shannon,
> I didn't know that about their code. Is there an
> engineer in New Zealand (or anywhere, for that matter)
> that has worked up some numbers that could show that
> strength of cob, at least in the cases that s/he has
> done the numbers for?
> Shody

I haven't seen any structural numbers for cob (and there aren't any in 
the NZ code).  The immediate reaction of most engineers who look at it 
seems to be to encase it in steel and cement or other reinforcement.  This 
is in my view incompetent engineering, first you determine what, if 
anything is needed, then you decide how to deal with it.  Of course this 
does require materials testing and probably finite element analysis, both 
of which take time and money, so from a strictly dollars perspective, the 
cement and steel approach is probably going be cheaper until we have a 
significant quantity of test data on cob.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
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