NEW TESTING MACHINE | LABORATORY | ZRS INGENIEURE
Since end of December, we have a new materials testing machine in our laboratory. This expands our range of building material testing services, which focus on earth building materials, and meets the growing importance of earth block masonry in particular. With the new testing machine, which can apply a nominal load of up to 600 kN (61 tonnes), we are now able to test the compressive strength of building materials such as earth blocks or rammed earth. Although we (ZRS Ingenieure) have already been able to test all the properties of these building materials, we have co-operated with other testing institutes specifically for the compressive strength test. We can now offer the entire scope of testing for load-bearing and non-load-bearing earth building materials and assess whether they can be used in accordance with the new standard for the construction, design and execution of load-bearing earth block masonry DIN 18940. In February 2024, we carried out the first compressive strength tests on rammed earth cubes using the new machine.
The new testing machine is also helpful for our expert assessment work in existing buildings. We can now test mineral building materials, e.g. in the form of extracted drill cores, directly in our laboratory and thus make a decisive contribution to the assessment and evaluation of buildings in solid construction. The possibilities are not limited to earthbuilding materials – brick masonry and reinforced concrete components can also be analysed. Therefore, we can make a decisive contribution to the recyclability of building materials in terms of sustainable construction.
