Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Building Materrial
Building Materrial
Brick Manufacturing
Preparation of soil
• Remove the top soil to prevent mixing of
tree roots, stones etc.
• Break firm lumps of clay and grind it with
water (1water: 3 clay) to bring the clay to a
consistency suitable for moulding
• Mix using a mill or by walking over the clay
mixture with bare feet
Moulding
Machine moulding
• Wire-cut and pressure process are used as machine
moulding
• In this process clay in the form of a continuous plastic
band is propelled from an auger over oiled rollers to
the cutting table
• When extruded clay column touches the stop of the
cutting table, wire frame moves through the clay
column cutting it into separate bricks (Figure 1)
• Dimensions of the cut brick are slightly greater than
the required size depending on the shrinkage of the
material, 6.4 mm to 8.5 mm per 100 mm which occurs
during the drying and burning process
• In the pressure process the prepared clay
is fed into moulds in a rotating table
• As each mould is filled a plunger
consolidates under great pressure
• As the table rotates another mould is filled
and pressed while the brick pressed
earlier is pushed upwards clear of the
moulds and removed
Hand moulding
Voids 1 - 5% 3 - 8%
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pamuditha/
2533439844/
• At a height of over 400 feet (120 m), it is the tallest stupa
in the world, largest brick building ever built, and 3rd
largest structure in the ancient world, after the two
largest of the Great Pyramids of Giza. Approximately
93,300,000 baked bricks were used to build the stupa
(Ratnayake, 1993).
• The compound covers approximately 8 acres
• One side of the stupa is 576 feet long
• The stupa has a 6m deep foundation, and sits on
bedrock
• Stone inscriptions in the courtyard give the names of
people who donated to the building effort
• The modern bricks contained less sand than the old
bricks
• The clay content is less in the old bricks, but the voids
ratio is higher
• It was also reported that the old brick was about three
times stronger than the modern bricks. The stress when
the first crack appeared in the modern bricks was about
1.5 N/mm2 and it was 4.3 N/mm2 for old bricks.
Unfortunately, the ultimate strengths had not been
reported.
• It can be seen from Table 2 that the sand used in the old
brick has been carefully selected and contain only of
certain sizes, but the sand used in modern bricks does
not indicate any careful selection as such
Defects in Bricks
• Black core or Hearting
This is due to brick being too rapidly heated in the kiln,
causing the surface of the brick to vitrify and the
interior remaining black
• Swelling
This is due to the presence of excessive quantity of
carbonaceous matter and due to bad burning
• Chuffs or shuffs
These are badly cracked or misshapen bricks produced by
rain falling on them when hot
• Crozzling
Excessive heating in the kiln produce misshapen bricks
• Efflorescence
Bricks made from clay containing a relatively large
proportion of soluble salts, particularly CaSO4 are liable
to become discoloured by the formation of a whitish and
as the bricks become dry the salt solution is brought to
the surface by capillarity, evaporation takes place and
the salts remain on the face.
• Grizzling
This defect causes bricks of good shape to be weak due to
under burning. These bricks can be easily identified by a
light colour and a dull sound when struck.
• Iron spots
These are surface dark spots, due to the presence of iron sulphides in
the clay which make the bricks unsuitable for exposed brick work
• Laminations
These are caused by the air in the voids between the particles of clay
not being eliminated in the grinding process, as producing the
formation of thin laminations on the faces of bricks which may
scale off on exposure to the weather
• Cracking
This is due to drying or cooling the bricks too quickly in the kiln
• Distortion
This is due to excessive water in the clay and can be overcome by
reducing water used for mixing
• Softening in water
If brick becomes soft when immersed in water it is under burnt
Cement –sand blocks
• For hand moulded blocks, timber moulds are widely
used
• The mould surface should be cleaned and smeared
with suitable oil after each casting
• Compaction is carried out in at least 2 layers, till the
volume reduction of 30% is reached
• Recommended mix proportions for solid bocks are 1
cement: 12 sand: water – cement ratio 1.3(weight of
water/weight of cement 1.3)
• 1 cement: 7 sand: water-cement ratio of 0.9 for two
storey work
• Curing by sprinkling of water for at least 7 days is
recommended
• These blocks should not be used for wall construction till 28 days
after casting
• This would help the block to undergo the main portion of shrinkage
before it is built into the wall, thus keeping the wall crack free
• The blocks should not be wetted before use. Wetting will produce
moisture expansion in the block which will subsequently increase
the shrinkage of the wall. As sand particles or hydrated cement will
not absorb water, it will be used up in filling small cavities which will
later flow out on to the green mortar increasing its water- cement
ratio and reducing mortar strength