New Composite Building System for Haiti

Below is a guest post by James Bancroft discussing a new building technology:

Rexwall/Aqua Homes (Germany) has developed and is producing a lightweight composite honeycomb-core panels used in both houseboats and land based homes. These are large insulated wall panels, glued into place.

I am not a fan of prefabricated panelized housing systems. Each house needs to be individually engineered, offering limited styles and require special assembly skills. Panelization might offer certain benefits for large housing tracts where the houses are all identical but have limited value for custom construction.

The concept for the lightweight composite building blocks allows for a variety, different sizes and architectural styles of structures without detailed architectural plans. Using only three or four standard, off-the-shelf blocks almost any type of structure can be built--local unskilled labor can easily visualize how they "fit together" and can adapt structures to the local topography.

Key to the success of any high tech building material is its adaptability to incorporate local building finishes--creating structures which fit into the historical context, customs and local design traditions--the use of materials which people have grown accustomed to--houses people want and feel comfortable living in.

Below and above are several illustrations demonstrating how this can be achieved using the composite blocks, rough exterior finishes allowing them to be stuccoed with local cementitious materials (Haiti-colorful Caribbean colors), roof panels reflecting local materials and natural flooring coverings.

For building green issues, the central insulating core could use recycled EPS, the buildings can be easily adapted to changing needs (unstacking and rebuilding) or be completely "disassembled" and recycled into new structures.

The next step in exploring and testing potential of the blocks would be to have a composite manufacture produce a number of prototype blocks, assemble them into a model small garden type house--take it apart and reassemble it several times to work out the details.

For more information contact Jim Bancroft at agatha43@comcast.net.

Related Articles:

Composite Material Blog: Biomimicry of Composite Materials

Composite Material Blog: Lightweight Composite Armor

Composite Material Blog: New Composite Research Center for medical ...

Composite Road Mats - For Oil Fields

The US consumes a ton of oil, far more then we produce, and according to a DOE EIA Report, the US imports about 2/3'rds of the oil consumed, with Canada providing the largest portion of oil to the US. As of June 2009, the US was consuming 2 million barrels of Canadian Oil, or Alberta Tea as I like to call it...

To get these 2 million barrels a day to pipelines, massive temporary roads are constructed, going over the difficult terrain of the tundra and swampy bogs. Giant 8' x 15' mats are placed together to create a road. These roads have massive trucks with heavy loads going back and forth over uneven ground. Needless to say, these mats take a serious beating.

Traditionally, mats are made with thick planks of wood and steel frames. These however are extremely heavy, and do not last as long as desired. More recently, composite materials are being introduced using light weight sandwich panels. The requirements are not easy as the panels need to be stiff, withstand wear and impact, and be able to connect to other panels.

Here is a recent article from the Oil & gas inquirer, describing a composite road mat system using a polypropylene honeycomb core and FRP skins. The article also discusses alternative methods to constructing these roads using wood chips over geotextile mats...

Photo Credit: jakesmome via flicker