SBIR Phase II: Topological Interlocking Manufactured Concrete Block

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is in providing manufactured concrete blocks that can be used to build arches, including roofs. This feature has never been done with manufactured concrete block, and holds the potential to greatly expand the uses, benefits and capabilities of concrete block to an entirely new market segment. The structures expected to be made possible with this novel masonry system include inexpensive, high-performance, energy efficient buildings with increased fire safety ratings, resistance to termites, increased safety for tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and other sever weather events, and greatly increased building life cycle time. This technology could have a large positive economic impact on masonry construction and on the concrete block manufacturing industry in particular, both across the US and around the globe. This work is expected to provide a greater understanding of the anisotropic strength of manufactured concrete block, and how this anisotropic strength is to be maximized within a given structure; this scientific understanding is expected to benefit the catenary thrust-line analysis of masonry arches. This technology is expected to make superior construction available to homeowners, businesses, government buildings and public works (including bridges) at greatly reduced cost. This project will create a design for a building which will utilize as many of the common features made available by this masonry system which the average user (homeowner, building owner, business, government agency, etc.) is expected to want to use. This building will be designed as a planetarium for Alfred University's Stull Observatory, and will include a twenty-four foot diameter planetarium room, as a domed hemisphere, made as a third frequency truncated icosahedron. This building will also include a separate meeting room and a separate office. This building will include Gothic windows, arched roofs, and flying buttresses which will create an outdoor porch which rings the outside of this building. This building will be designed with a Professional Engineer and a Registered Design Professional (architect) to show all the equations, stress analyses, free body diagrams, etc., which were used to arrive at the final design. Once completed, this building will serve as a test or sample building used to obtain an Evaluation Report by the International Code Council - Evaluation Services (ICC-ES). A positive Evaluation Report from ICC-ES will allow this technology to be sold globally in accordance with the International Building Code (IBC).