Herod Engineering in Israel is using basalt rebar in archeological sites in conformance with requirements of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Israel Nature and Parks Authority preservation architects and engineers.
INFORMATION FROM HEROD ENGINEERING:
We did several tests with rebars in order to verify their suitability as reinforcement for ancient buildings. Preservation requires the use of Natural Hydraulic Lime (NHL) as the bond between rebar and stone.
- STEEL – Steel rebar was corroded by the NHL
- FIBERGLASS – It didn’t take more than a few dozen pounds to pull the fiberglass rebars out.
- BASALT – 12 mm basalt rebar was pulled out by 230 kg (2300 Newton) of force in one test and 500 kg (5,000 N) in another test done in better conditions. Failure was gradual. At 230 kg the basalt rebar started coming out of the stone, but continued to carry a 100 kg load. In the second test, at 500 kg, the rebar started coming out of the stone, but continued to carry 350 kg load.
The rebars were inserted into a typical second temple building stone. A 35 cm deep, 16 mm diameter bore was drilled, filled with NHL-3.5 and then the rebar inserted.
Failures were in the stone or NHL. Use of higher grade, stronger NHL is not advisable, preserving the ancient stone is the important task.
Yossie Laor, Herod Engineering
awesome product , How much embodied energy goes into the mining, manufacture,
and moving from source to job site
l build straw bale homes an would like to replace the rebar with code approved rebar
Basalt is all rock- one pound mined from a volcanic source that expended its gases millions of years ago becomes almost one pound of fibers.
As it weighs over 70% lighter than steel we can ship almost 7 containers of steel by weight in ONE container of basalt. It is safer non-respirable, non-conductive, easy to recycle, UV immune, does to harbor bacterial or microbial growth. Basalt handles aggressive chemicals and acids and salts and hundreds of degrees higher and lower temperatures than fiberglass. It bends like. pole vault so in a seismic event it wants to return to straight not stay bent like steel. Adding our mesh to the inside and outside of the bales then stucco or plaster will improve seismic ability tremendously.