Sand Castle Holds Up a Car! – Mechanically Stabilized Earth

When it comes to constructing roadways and other building materials, you want to not only use the cheapest material that you can, but also, obviously want and need it to be strong as well.

Now, regular old dirt might be the most affordable building material known to man, but, as we know it isn’t all that strong. However, with a little bit of simple engineering, we can make it that way.

In this entertaining video, we learn how to use separating materials to help share the load, allowing something as simple as sand to hold up the weight of the car with the help of a regular old fiberglass screen in a material that’s known as mechanically stabilized earth.

Check out the video below that shows us how it all works, not only in making sand hold up a car, but also in projects that we see all around us.