Honors College Thesis
 

Evaluation of Shear Resistance of Reinforced Cob

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/honors_college_theses/79408003g

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  • Cob, similar to adobe, is an earthen building material made of soil, sand, and straw. Although cob was used to build homes in England centuries ago, it has reemerged as a sustainable and relatively inexpensive, alternative building material. A possible solution for housing in impoverished nations, cob needs to be studied more in order to provide reliable strength data so that the material can be codified. The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of chicken wire as reinforcement in a cob wall had an effect on the shear strength of the cob wall. Using two types of soil (a plastic silt and a pure kaolinite), four cob wall panels were created, with one of each soil type being reinforced with chicken wire. The wall panels were tested in a shear box to simulate earthquake loading. The results of this study indicated that the kaolinite specimens showed a trend that the reinforced cob wall panel required a greater load than the unreinforced cob panel in order to deform the same amount. Reinforcement also appeared to increase the toughness of the cob panel. Trends regarding the reinforcement of the silt cob panel were unable to be determined due to the unknown orientation of the chicken wire reinforcement and incomplete data collection.
  • Presentation given during thesis defense regarding an evaluation of shear resistance of reinforced cob. Four specimens were created: two with the plastic silt cob mixture (one specimen containing chicken wire reinforcement) and two with the pure kaolinite cob mixture (one specimen containing chicken wire reinforcement). The samples were tested in a simple shear box. Load, deformation, and image analysis data were collected. Analysis shows that there is a trend that reinforcement has an effect on the ductility of the cob material.
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