[Cob] structural strength and seismic resistance calculations

[Amanda Peck]

The Stanley Park guys can be emailed, phoned, or faxed.  STart with "contact 
us" on their site, then click on "email"--it might be in a snake that bit 
position (American saying for something right in front of you "if it had 
been a snake, it would have bit"  I didn't think that there was a clickable 
link there--but it opens, at least in Microsoft's software, an email with 
the address filled in).  Or at least one of them is here, and may reply as 
well.

Sometimes in the U.S. south-west, at least, adobe codes are applied to cob 
or rammed earth.  Here's an engineer's guide to straw bale and rammed earth 
(Possible that Walnut Books in County Cork may carry it as well--or Amazon 
UK):

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0964471817/qid=1106867569/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/104-3912253-9893536?v=glance&s=books

Gernot Minke has written a (THE?) textbook on earthen building, a 
pamphlet--on-line--on building with pumice.

And a pamphlet on earthen buildings in seismic areas, with some 
documentation of one of his student's experiments of the influence of shape 
and construction on his ability to smash models.   It's still available 
on-line:

http://www2.gtz.de/Basin/publications/books/ManualMinke.pdf



..................
Robert wrote:

I live in Spain and to build a cob structure I have to work with an
architect to product a project for the College of Architects in Granada.
All new homes need this approval. This project will contain the
structural strength and seismic resistance calculations to demonstrate
they meet the required standards.  In order to do this we need to find
others may have done similar calculations with this material.
With regard to seismic tests I have seen the web site
http://stanleyparkecology.ca/programs/cob/index.html but I believe we
need more detail than this site provides.

Looking forward to hearing from you