Float-ram: a new human powered press for earth blocks

The Float-Ram is a novel kind of human-powered press for raw earth blocks. It is able to provide very high performance, while maintaining a limited cost, due to some technical characteristics like: •the adoption of a floating mould, which provides a bi-directional pressing action in simple way; •Optimized kinematic structure, based on a cam-roller transmission system; •General mechanical simplicity, since the node of all kinematic pairs is constituted by a single shaft. Therefore the Float-Ram can be considered as an important media for the diffusion of high-quality raw earth building in developing Countries.