UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE

Department of Civil Engineering

LABORATORY REPORT

NAME : MAPINGURE ALOUIS T

REG NUMBER : R164386N

LEVEL : 3.2

PRACTICAL TITLE : BRICKS COMPRESSION

TESTS

COURSE : CONSTRUCTION
MATERIALS

LECTURER : Eng. S. SHUMBA

LAB TECHNICIAN : MR CHINYAMA

DATE OF SUBMISSION : 02 NOVEMBER 2018

OBJECTIVE

(i) To test for the compressive strength of different types of bricks

LITERATURE REVIEW

A brick is a ceramic material which is mainly used in the construction industry. Its production
process involves forming of clay into rectangular blocks of standard size, followed by firing
to temperature ranging from 900 to 1200°C (Reddy & Gupta, 2012). Bricks are the most
common and useful building materials used for masonry construction works. To build a long
lasting structure, we should always use good quality bricks and other building materials. To
know the quality of bricks, several tests can be performed which include compressive
strength test, water absorption test, efflorescence test, hardness test, soundness test and
structure test (Mahmood & Ingham, 2011). The compressive strength is also known as the
crushing strength of brick. Universal compression and tension testing machine is used to test
for the compressive strength of bricks. In this test, a brick specimen is put on crushing
machine and pressure is applied till the brick breaks. The ultimate pressure at which brick is
crushed is taken into account. To test for the compressive strength, five specimens or brick
are taken into laboratory for testing and they are tested one after the other. The average
strength of the five specimen tested is taken as the bricks compressive/crushing strength. The
minimum crushing or compressive strength of bricks is 3.50 N/mm2.

Figure1. A universal compression and tension testing machine compressing a brick.

 Compressive strength tests on bricks are carried out to determine the load bearing capacity of
bricks under compression. Bricks are generally used for construction of load bearing masonry
walls, columns and footings (Hemant , et al., 2007). These load bearing masonry structures
experiences mostly the compressive loads. It is therefore important to know the compressive
strength of the bricks to check for its suitability for construction (Morel, et al., 2007).

APPARATUS AND MATERIALS

1. Brick specimen
2. Servo-controlled compression test machine (max capacity 800 KN)

PROCEDURE

1. The specimen was placed, with flat faces horizontal and mortar filled face facing upwards
between plates of the testing machine.

2. A load was applied axially at a uniform rate of 4 N/mm 2 per minute till failure occurred and
maximum load was noted at failure.
3. The load at failure is the maximum load at which the specimen fails to produce any further
increase in the indicator reading on the testing machine.
RESULTS

Specimen Brick type Brick Length Breadth Depth Maximum Area(mm2) Compressive
number Mass (mm) (mm) (mm) Load (KN) Strength
(g) (MPa)
11 Perforated
face brick 2680 225 109 71 519.3 24525 21.2
(smooth)
3 Concrete
Face Brick 3978 221 105 70 2700 23205 116.4
P Hard burnt
brick 2724 215 102 70 635.3 21930 29.0
C Common
Face Brick 3362 225 107 70 700.1 24075 29.1
P2 Concrete
Face brick 4050 221 105 70 2900 23205 125.0

NB: Brick 3 and P2 are the same type but test for their strength was done twice to make
corrections and adjustments necessary.

The breaking load was taken as the load at which the specimen fails under compression and
does not have the capacity to take any further load.

DISCUSSION

The compressive strength for the perforated face brick, the common brick and the hard burnt
brick were 30 MPa (to the nearest ten). The concrete bricks had strengths of 125MPa and
116.4 MPa and this is mainly because they are made from concrete thus they have a strong
compressive strength.

CONCLUSION

References
Hemant , B., Durgesh, C. & Sudhir, K., 2007. Stress Characteristics of Clay Brick Masonry under
Uniaxial Compression. Technical papers: ASCE Library, 19(9).

Mahmood, H. & Ingham, J. M., 2011. Compression Testing For RFP- Retrofitted Unreinforced Clay
Brick Masonry. Techinical paper: ASCE library, 15(5).

Morel, J.-C., Pkla, A. & Walker, P., 2007. Compressive Strength Testing of Compressed Earth Bricks.
Construction Building Materials, 21(2), pp. 303-309.

Reddy, V. B. & Gupta, A., 2012. Characteristics of soil-cement blocks using highly sandy soils.
Bangalore: Indian Institute of Science.