Book Description

This book covers various types of earth construction including adobe, cob and rammed earth. It presents a wide-ranging review of the history of earth building, tracing the development of construction techniques from antiquity to the present day, and showing the development of the techniques with both time and geography. The behaviour of earth building materials is explained using, for the first time, principles from soil mechanics. There is a detailed discussion of strategies for the analysis and conservation of earth buildings to enable engineers, conservation professionals and architects to understand and preserve earth buildings better in the future. Richly illustrated with photographs and diagrams, this book provides an invaluable tool for the conservation of earth buildings.

Contents

Preface. Acknowledgements. Nomenclature

Introduction

1 Types of earthen construction

Introduction. Earthen construction principles. Monolithic earth walls: rammed earth. Monolithic earth walls: cob. Unit construction. Conclusions

2 History of earth building

Introduction. Eastern Asia. Central Asia and the Indus valley. Asia. Africa. Europe. North America. South America. Australasia. Conclusions

3 Fundamental behaviour of earthen construction materials

Introduction. Soil mechanics. Soil strength. Effective stress. Unsaturated soil mechanics. Fundamentals. Relative humidity.

The soil water retention curve. Compaction. The role of clay. The role of stabilisers. Effect of water content on mechanical behaviour of earth structures. Current research. Conclusions

4 Damage to earth buildings

Introduction. Structural. Water. Render. Organic matter. Abrasion. Concluding remarks

5 Conservation strategies

Introduction. Conservation principles. Earth-building analysis and repair strategy. Foundation issues. Cracks. Wall lean. Water. Face repair. Repair to the wall using fallen or similar material. Whole building reconstruction

6 Concluding remarks

References. Bibliography

Index

96pp, 246X189 mm