Determination of Physical and Mechanical Properties of Porous Blocks (Bricks) Produced with Brick Clay

Abstract

Clay brick has recently become a very inevitable product for the construction industry due to the being a sustainable and relatively cheaper material especially with the parallel of developments on foam-forming agents. These bricks have two main problems. These are high unit volume weight and thermal conductivity. In this study, an expansion agent was added to the brick raw material to reduce the unit weight of the brick and to increase the thermal insulation. Samples were produced by adding a mixture of expanding at certain rates. The produced samples were fired at 850, 900, 950, 1000, 1050 and 1100 oC to obtain 100×100×100 mm bricks. The unit volume weight, water absorption, void ratio, compressive strength, compressive strength after freezing-thawing and thermal conductivity properties of the produced bricks were investigated. According to the data obtained in the research, the optimum expansion chemical ratio is 15%. The most suitable firing temperature was determined as 1100 oC. The samples produced with 15% expander at 1100 °C, unit volume weight 744 kg/m3, water absorption 31.83%, void ratio 36.88 %, compressive strength 6.93 MPa, compressive strength after freezing-thawing 5.10 MPa and thermal conductivity λ=0.16 W/mK.