Gallery

The talk started with a brief overview of Durham University, the local attractions and the sports activities from where the speaker hails. The speaker went on to clarify what is meant by earthen construction, types of earthen construction prevalent in various parts of the world like unit based products in the form of Adobe bricks, Compressed stabilized Earth Blocks (CSEBs); In-situ earthen construction in the form of Rammed Earth Walls (RME walls). The speaker also cited various important and prominent buildings and structures in different parts of the world where they been used including: The Great wall of Chins, The Berlin wall in Germany, Rammed Earth constructions in Spain, Hospital buildings in Australia. The speaker brought the advantages of earthen construction to have thermal comfort both in extreme cold and hot climate. The speaker emphasized the need for going for earthen construction in view of reduced carbon footprint which is a need of the hour to reduce global warming. The speaker finally linked understanding the source of strength in earthen construction to the research carried out at Durham University using principles of Unsaturated soil mechanics, fracture testing of rammed earth walls specimens. The speaker also brought the advantage of using sophisticated testing equipment like X-ray Computed Tomography (XRCT) to understand the microstructure of the earthen products as a relation to the moisture retention in the void space. The importance of reinforcing earthen structures was also brought out in the course of the presentation. Finally the emerging research trends at University of Durham using green stabilizing materials like biopolymers was discussed. The speaker concluded saying that new and interesting stabilizing materials may emerge in the course of time, and there is a need for a better understanding of those materials for their successful applications, and hence the need for research