Virtual Plant Design of Industrial Manufacturing System for Earth Plasters

Earth plasters represent traditional building materials, which were earlier used to cover walls of buildings. These materials were replaced about one century ago by lime-cement-sand mixtures. Earth-plasters have introduced again and their excellent properties to regulate indoor humidity have been scientifically explained. The accumulation property of moisture also averages the indoor temperature by means of energy flows during the phase changes, which makes it a very popular solution to be used as indoor plaster in low energy Passive Houses. Earth (loam) plaster is a composite, in which the sand granulate is the filling material, which is glued by clay and bound by natural fibres obtained for instance from hemp. Small amounts of earth-plasters can be produced by manually controlled workshops, but larger production amounts call for a modern automated plant to manufacture the natural plaster-composites like any other industrial end-product in concrete and aggregate business. The design task of such plant by using 3D virtual design tools is described and the results are shown.