Background:

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Overall, 46.2 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The 4walls project is a nonprofit organization that helps impoverished families obtain their own home by building them 20x20 houses with brick walls. Currently, the roofs of these homes are made of sheets of corrugated zinc or tin. However, this brings unwanted heat into the house, is very loud during rainstorms, and costs more than $400 per house. The goal of this project is to develop a cheaper, cooler, and quieter solution that uses local materials in order to support the local economy.

Problem Statement:

The corrugated zinc roofs cost too much and provide poor heat and sound insulation. Last year’s iteration of this project improved on the first iteration by proposing a wavy, overlapping tile design made of a mixture of biochar and concrete. They also developed a process for manufacturing these tiles. However, biochar is not as easily available as other potential building materials, most notably pumice. Our goal is to optimize a pumice-concrete mix that will results in cooler, lighter, and more affordable tiles. We also aim to design a tile for the very top of the roof, and to streamline and standardize the manufacturing process for both types of tiles, so that the design can be easily constructed by 4Walls and the citizens of El Sauce.

Test Roofs

Project Name

Pumice Concrete Roofing Tiles: Manufacturing Process and Complete Roof System

Project Number

P18485

Project Family

Sustainable Technologies for a Global Marketplace

Start Term

Fall 2171

End Term

Spring 2175

Faculty Guide

Sarah Brownell, sabeie@rit.edu

Primary Customer

Kellan Morgan, EnLace Project

Bonnie Yannie, Project 4 Walls

Sally Kuehl, Project 4 Walls

Robert Boxer, Project 4 Walls

Sponsor (financial support)

Joel Blackner, Hess Pumice (joel@hesspumice.com)

Mike Hess Jr., Hess Pumice (jrmike@hesspumice.com)

Project Photos and Videos

Imagine RIT Exhibit

Gate Reviews

Problem Definition

Systems Design

Preliminary Detailed Design

Detailed Design

Build & Test Prep

Subsystem Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test

Customer Handoff & Final Project Documentation (Verification & Validation)

PRP

Requirements

Schedule

Final Cost

Final Risk Assessment

Use Cases

Benchmarking

Functional Decomposition

Morphological Chart

Mechanical Drawings

Facility Layout

House Assembly CAD Files

All Other CAD Files

Mockups

Test Plans

Simulations

Test Results

El Sauce Trip

Technical Paper

Final Poster

Customer Requirements vs. Performance

Standard Operating Procedure

Imagine RIT Exhibit