A low cost device for production of country roofing tiles

Country roofing tiles, are extensively used in the villages as roofing material. The conventional production technique used for producing tiles is through potter wheel or by manual moulding technique. These processes yield non-uniform, uncompacted, dimensionally unstable and poor quality products. The tiles generally depict considerable damage or breakage during transportation or fixing in a roof. In view of this, a low cost moulding device for production of compact country roofing tiles was designed and fabricated in Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee. Extensive trials have proven its amenability to commercialization for production rate of 500-600 tiles/d by a semi-skilled worker. The details of the low cost device for production of country roofing tiles have been delineated. Use of this device will certainly generate employment in the rural areas of India and other developing countries.