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BUILDING
Richard Walker
Richard Walker Consulting Engineer, Nelson
Hugh Morris
Department of Civil and Resource Engineering, The University of Auckland
SUMMARY
As the number of houses built from earth increases in New Zealand so has the need for standards. The background,
development and some key technical issues are outlined.
Three New Zealand Standards for earth building have been developed using limit state design principles. The
standards are NZS 4297 Engineering Design of Earth Buildings, NZS 4298 Materials and Workmanship for Earth
Buildings and NZS 4297 Earth Buildings Not Requiring Specific Design. The standards cover adobe (sun dried
brick), rammed earth and pressed brick construction including reinforced and unreinforced walls.
No substantial performance based standards have been developed internationally so much of the approach had to be
developed for these standards. The design approach is based on existing masonry and concrete standards. An
energy method is used for out-of-plane seismic design of unreinforced earth walls.
Simple and low cost materials tests were adopted to establish that earth wall materials meet the building code
requirements. Construction details are based on current best practice in both Australia and New Zealand. A small
number of structural tests were carried out to confirm the structural strengths assumed.
EARTH BUILDING IN NEW ZEALAND the viability of various earth building techniques.
The earth building community has been active in
History
gaining greater public interest and more widespread
Earth Building began in New Zealand at the acceptance within the building regulatory system.
beginning of European Settlement. Although all forms
of masonry lost favour after the 1846 and 1855 CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES
earthquakes. 121 earth houses still exist that were
constructed between and 1840 and 1870, and a further Rammed Earth
168 survive from 1870-1910. There was little activity
Monolithic wall panels, usually cement stabilised
until a number of houses were built of cement
earth, are compacted between stiffened shutters well
stabilised earth in the 1940’s due to influence of Pip
supported to prevent lateral spread. This technique is
Alley at Canterbury University and the materials
best suited to well graded sandy or gravelly soils.
shortages that followed the war. Interest dwindled
Compaction is normally done in 100-150mm layers
again until a significant increase in the 1980’s. [1]
by pneumatic tamper or hand rammers.
Current Situation
Adobe
In the 1980's growing interest in more
Air dried “mud-bricks” made from a puddled earth
environmentally friendly and sustainable buildings
mix cast into a mould. The earth mix contains sand,
resulted in increasing public acceptance of earth
silt and clay and sometimes straw or a stabiliser which
housing. People wanting to use natural building
is also used to mortar the walls.
materials were leaders in the recent upsurge in earth
building in New Zealand. Subsequently many small
earth homes and large executive style houses have Pressed Earth Bricks
been constructed or are currently being constructed in An earth brick that is formed in a mechanical press
New Zealand. either machine or hand operated. A “CINVA ram” is
a common hand press. Walls are usually laid with
It is estimated that well over 100 earth buildings have
cement mortars.
been built during the past 10 years in New Zealand
and this has necessitated builders and engineers
liaising in detail with building authorities to establish
INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND THE unwieldy with over 20 members and serious
WRITING PROCESS differences became evident due to the less regulated
Australian house construction culture.
Existing Standards
In March 1997 the project became “de-jointed” from
There are prescriptive earth building standards in Australia and the New Zealand public drafts were
China, Peru, and Turkey. In the USA there is a brief issued August 1 1997.
mention in the UBC documents, there are state codes
in Arizona and New Mexico and some local County NZS 4297 ENGINEERING DESIGN OF EARTH
codes. These standards generally are brief guideline BUILDINGS
documents that give information about overall
structural form and materials with some indicative The Engineering Design Standard specifies design
strengths. requirements and design methodologies for earth
buildings limited to wall heights of 6.5m. Most earth
Australia buildings are small shear wall structures using floor
and ceiling diaphragms and bond beams.
Some rammed earth buildings constructed by English
settlers still survive from the 1830’s. Temporary earth Earth as used in walls of buildings has a low
buildings were used earlier to a limited extent by compressive strength with large wall thicknesses
Australian Aborigines. [2] generally in the range 230mm-400mm. Earthquake
loads are critical for most earth buildings and this
In 1952 earth building gained impetus when
height limitation recognises the limits of the material
Architect/Engineer George Middleton wrote Bulletin
and the current state-of-the-art in understanding
5 Earth-wall Construction for the Commonwealth
modern earth buildings in seismic areas.
Experimental Building Station. The 2nd metricated
1976 edition was published at a time when earth
Seismic Zone Factor
building activity was increasing. The 3rd 1981 edition
of this handbook included specific evaluation Because of the wall height limitation the seismic zone
procedures and became the defacto standard for earth factor Z to be used with NZS 4203 The Loadings
construction and was accepted by many local Standard [5] is reduced to 0.4 for Northland. This
authorities. The current 4th edition, 1987, is 65 pages more accurately reflects the hazard as mapped by
and published by the National Building Technology seismologists [6] which was artificially restricted to
Centre.[3] A new handbook sponsored by Standards 0.6 in NZS 4203 to minimise risk to limit damage in
Australia is currently at draft stage. the event of a serious earthquake in Auckland.
Figure 2 Reinforcing and dowels for reinforced earth walls (rearranged from fig 5.4 NZS 4299)
Two earthquake zones with the following factors
All earth walls for earthquake zone factor < 0.6 may
were adopted for the determination of seismic loads:
be reinforced or unreinforced. All earth walls in
Earthquake zone factor < 0.6, Z =0.6, earthquake zone factor > 0.6 shall be reinforced.
Earthquake zone factor > 0.6, Z =1.2.
The reinforcement enables smaller seismic design
loads, when a planned ductile failure mode is calculated to be 30 kN.
designed into the structure. The designed failure mode
The bracing capacity provided by a similar sized
is in plane bending of earth bracing walls with
unreinforced earthly for earthquake zone factor < 0.6
yielding of vertical reinforcing at each end of the
was calculated to be 10 kN.
wall. Shear failure of these walls must be prevented
by use of horizontal reinforcing generally. The energy method proposed by the New Zealand
National Society for Earthquake Engineering for the
The structural ductility factor was taken as 1.0 for
strength assessment of unreinforced masonry
unreinforced earth walls and 2.0 for reinforced earth
buildings [7]was used for checking the performance
walls.
of unreinforced earth walls under out of plane seismic
The seismic coefficients for the design of the earth loading. Unreinforced earth walls for earthquake zone
walls were as follows: factor < 0.6 were found to be satisfactory for the
- Unreinforced earth walls with elastic response for maximum wall heights specified in the standard. For
earthquake zone factor < 0.6 C = 0.322 example the failure of a 3000 mm high and 280mm
- Reinforced earth walls with limited ductility for thick wall was calculated to occur at 135 % of the
earthquake zone factor < 0.6 C = 0.197 calculated demand requirement with φ=0.6.
- Reinforced earth walls with limited ductility for
In reinforced earth walls vertical reinforcing supports
earthquake zone factor > 0.6 C = 0.394
wall panels against face loading.
The design compressive strength of the earth wall
materials was taken as 0.5 Mpa except for the cement STRUCTURAL TESTING
stabilised cinva bricks which was taken as 2.0 Mpa.
The shear strength of earth was taken as zero for Adobe Panels
limited ductile seismic loading and as 0.09 Mpa for Adobe as used in walls is a low strength material with
seismic loading with elastic response. a low stiffness. Diagonal compression tests of small
All earth buildings covered by the standard are braced 1.2m adobe panels were used to investigate the
by earth bracing walls in each of the two principal effectiveness of different reinforcing approaches.
directions of the building to resist horizontal wind and Two 1.8m high panels one 1.8m wide and the other
earthquake loads. 1.2m. In-plane test panels horizontally loaded at the
A methodology and detailed tables in terms of bracing top edge demonstrated some advantages of the low
units are provided in the standard for determining the stiffness and sliding in the mortar layers giving
bracing required for a building and the bracing effective ductile performance. The measured
provided. maximum cyclic shear strengths were 65kPa for the
1.8m wall (retested after a reinforcing rod pulled out
Many drawings of construction details, which have of the foundation) and 90kPa for the 1.2m wall as
been proved in the New Zealand setting in earth reported in more detail by Morris. [12]
buildings constructed during the past 10 years, are
included in the standard. Rammed Soil-cement Panels
Figures 2 and 3 (5.4 and 5.5 DZ 4299) show some Two rammed earth panels were constructed with soil-
typical details for reinforced earth walls. cement compacted to approximately 100mm thick
layers within the formwork.
The soil was about 5% clay, 40% silt and 55% sand,
The Liquid Limit and Plastic Index varied from LL 43
and PI 17 to no measurable plasticity. The soil Proctor
optimum moisture content was 27-28% which reduces
with the addition of cement.
load system. 50
Load (kN)
0
Wall Panel A
The first wall panel was 250mm thick 1.8 long and -50 Part of wall dislodged
from deformation gauge
of the base fixed with dowels epoxy grouted into the Deformation (mm)
0
diagonal tension crack.
-50