User:Materials/Rammed Earth

In the third world countries, a vast population lives in rural areas, and many of them live in houses made up of locally available materials like earth, timber, bamboo, etc. In many instances, rammed earth is used to construct the walls, and bamboo and timbers are used to construct the roof and other supporting structures. Walls are uniform in thickness, which vary usually from 457.2-609.6 mm, and their dimensions depend on the space required. For example, a typical two room house with two stories may have the following dimensions (Fig. 1): height H = 7,620 mm; wall thickness, t = 547.2 mm; length, b = 6,096 mm; and breadth, h = 3,048 mm. The roof is covered by a material such as straw, grass, palm leaves, tiles, asbestos, etc. Its weight occasionally increases because of snow, rain, etc., and is transmitted to the ground through the walls