Design of an Automation System for the Production of Soil-Cement Blocks

The emission of greenhouse gases produced by industries is an increasingly worrying factor in the world, as these gases destroy the ozone layer, including the emission of CO2 from the manufacture of handmade bricks with kilns during the vitrification process. The objective of this research was to determine the compressive strength and its analysis of the cost of manual manufacture of an ecological, sustainable material such as soil-cement blocks; in addition, an automated system was proposed for the production of these blocks using engineering software such as Factory IO and TIA Portal. As a result, it was obtained that with a 15% cement content in the blocks, an average mechanical resistance of 8.47 MPa was achieved; however, the manufacturing cost was minimally higher than that of industrialised bricks by 4.17%. Finally, it was concluded that blocks with 15% cement are an alternative for housing construction due to the high compressive strength, the automation to manufacture these blocks makes the cost lower due to the reduction of skilled labour. Likewise, it has been demonstrated that a mechatronic control by means of a PLC provides a productive process of soil-cement blocks because it improves and accelerates the manufacturing processes of this complex product, all by means of the use of multiple sensors and tank filling times depending on the process.