http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/categories/materials/ A catalog of non-toxic building materials. Copyright 2006 Eric Hunting Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:19:40 GMT http://backend.userland.com/rss Radio UserLand v8.2.1 hunting@tigger.jvnc.net hunting@tigger.jvnc.net rssUpdates 4 5 6 9 11 13 12 3 60 http://www.greeninventor.org/strawjet.shtml <img src="http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/images/beam.jpg"> An interesting new use for straw as a building material has emerged recently in the form of a system called Strawjet, now being developed at Ashland School of Environmental Technology. The use of straw bale for non-toxic housing has tended to be tricky due to the problem of residual pesticides on on all non-organic agricultural products and the need for great care in preventing any possibility of mold or pest intrusion in the rendering encapsulating the straw bales. This new technology offers a new form of straw construction that may reduce these problems, though at present much more field experience is needed to determine its non-toxic housing potential. Strawjet is based on the use of a special winding and binding mechanism which allows a harvester to produce a continuous thick cable of dense compressed straw fiber which is woven into composite panels and pultruded into beams with a cementous encapsulant. Individual cable cores can be replaced with pipe to serve as in-wall or in-beam utility conduits. Some very interesting architecture has been proposed for this technology, though not yet demonstrated. All in all, a promising technology but still in its very early stages of development. http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/categories/materials/2006/06/12.html#a104 Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:19:27 GMT