in reply to bontie44: the box was just a heavy cardboard mailer that
I oiled the inside surfaces first with a spray can of olive oil
(don't tell my wife the cook, why the can is almost empty)
slurryguy: well for compression testing I'll probably apply some
heavy weight over a given square surface area and measure the
deformation with a caliper, or something like that. I'll probably
use a small area, like 1" x 1" and load it with some barbell weights,
and let them sit for some time, like a week or a month. If the pc
test material dead weight is 15 lb/cf, then with a 8' high wall the
dead load of the wall is 120 lb/sf for a 12" thick wall, I'd like to
see close to zero deformation with 100 lbs or so on the 1" x 1"
square test area. Western red cedar design values are 350 lbs/sq
inch perpendicular to the grain, so 1/4 of this would make me happy,
especially in a non-load bearing wall, but... it needs to support
itself and anything hung on the wall. I hope to start a cabin on
some land in colorado, but would use this material for the interior
walls only, the larimer county code guys are persnickity and I doubt
they would permit it for outside walls. Plus, I'm a little hesitant
at this point due to my inexperience with pc.
The other issue is one of safety, if a kid runs into the wall, is
there enough fiber strength in bending to keep the wall from tumbling
down. At this point, I'm thinking of forming the blocks with some
type of nested interlock on the top and bottom and glueing them
together with elmers. I've got some time to play first, so there
won't be any mistakes.
--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "slurryguy" <slurryguy@...>
wrote:
>
> Welcome to the group md!
>
> No matter how much you read about papercrete there isn't a
substitute
> for mixing up a sample is there?
>
> What are you planning as a compression testing method?
>
> Keep in mind that papercrete will have some give to it. It is a
wood
> product after all. Measuring the compressive deflection as a
> function of compressive load would probably best characterize the
> load carrying properties.
>
> Failure testing is also informative, but most papercrete mixes
don't
> seem to fail catastrophically like typical concrete. In many ways
it
> acts like a sponge. You can squish the heck out of it and it will
> bounce back.
>
> I'd love to see what papercrete structure would do on a shake table
> earthquake simulator. It might perform magnificently.
>
> --- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "mdumiller" <mdmiller1@>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I am an architect, and I just had to try to make a batch of this
> > stuff. I have a few stats I'll share that might help someone
else,
> > since I wasn't sure what I was getting into.
> >
> > Measured out 90 grams of paper and 15 grams each of portland,
lime,
> > clay, and a calcium carbonate/silicate mix I had (couldn't find
my
> > bag of sand). Tossed in 5 grams each of borax and burnt umber
(for
> > color - burnt umber is mostly clay). This is based (loosely) on
> the
> > recipe from Robert Merrill. I pureed the paper in the blender in
a
> > couple of batches, set into a colander to strain for awhile, then
> > mixed everything together. What amazed me was the amount of
water
> > this took even after draining the puree in the colander. Here's
> the
> > numbers:
> > 160 grams of dry materials - Total dry weight 160 grams
> > 1100 grams of water (after draining paper puree)
> > which created: a block 3.5" X 4" X 5" Total wet weight 1260
> grams.
> >
> > Thus a cubic foot of this material is 8.7 lbs when zero
moisture.
> > Assuming the moisture content gets down eventually to 8% or less
by
> > volume, then a cubic foot of this stuff should be about 14-15
lbs.
> > (based on a cubic foot of water being about 64 pounds, so 8%
would
> > add 1/8 X 64, about 5 pounds of moisture - that seems like a lot
> for
> > some reason...)
> > ...my conclusion, is, that this material looks pretty incredible -
-
> > and I like the burnt umber color, looks kind of like a chunk of
> > Hershey's chocolate.
> > I'll be tracking the weight periodically over the next week as
the
> > block dries. Can't wait to put some compression loads on some
> > samples.
> > thanks to all for their freely sharing of info on this group.
> >
>
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