Abstract
More than 226 million people are affected by some type of disaster every year in various dimensions of human life, both in the short and long term. In this context, housing provision plays a leading role when it comes to basic needs and the choice of construction technologies and materials are determinant for a well-succeeded housing provision process. This work aims to analyze the viability of reinforced masonry technology with cement-stabilized compressed earth blocks as an alternative for the (re)construction process in situations that involve disaster risk reduction (DRR). To address this issue, a discussion from the literature and the main results obtained during the investigations carried out within the scope of the Simple Housing Solution (SHS) Project are presented. In the sequence, analyses are performed under United Nations Development Program/International Recovery Platform sustainability recommendations: environmental, technical, financial and socio-organizational aspects. It is concluded that the technology of Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) reinforced structural masonry has a high potential to be successfully applied in DRR situations, especially when associated with the community construction system in a joint effort.
Highlights
It was found that the blocks with a 1:8 volume proportion reached a mean compressive strength higher than 2 MPa, a value higher than the minimum established by NBR 8491 (2012) [12] for the production of Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs)
The construction technology plays a central role in theconstruction process in disaster contexts, with CEB reinforced masonry being considered promising for use in these situations
Discussions were presented on several aspects of this technology, based on the UNPD and International Recovery Platform (IRP) sustainability recommendations [29]:
Summary
There is no consensus in the literature about the beginning of the earth being used as a building material. Pollock [1] mentions historical records between 5000 and 4000 BC in Mesopotamia, while Berge [2] mentions dates up to 7000 BC, when the use of adobe blocks in Tigris River basins was verified, stating that the earth is one of the oldest building materials employed by man. Despite the traditional use of earthen building technologies, three centuries ago, it became less attractive than ceramic bricks. In this context, earthen architectures continued to exist only where the scarcity of economic resources required the use of low-cost raw materials for construction [3].
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