Development of improved bricks (LM) and use of new technologies for ecological bricks (LE) elaboration

Abstract

Brick is a material that has been widely used in construction sector, however, it has not received the necessary attention in order to improve its performance, which has resulted a general lack of knowledge about its manufacturing processes such as: clay mines over-exploitation, ignorance of mixtures dosages and greenhouse gas emissions from wood burning. This research therefore aims to find a suitable mixture to produce improved bricks (LM) by analysing its mechanical properties compared with handmade bricks (LPA). Besides, this research work uses the ?geo-polymerization? process for the preparation of ecological bricks (LE) at slightly high temperatures which gives a significant environmental benefit.In order to achieve the objectives, firstly, samples were characterized from mines by physical, chemical and mineralogical tests and then, it was determined the optimal mixture for LM and LE elaboration by evaluating its optimal factor (OF) according to the diametric compression test. In order to perform this test, specimens of different combination of materials and processes were elaborated. Once optimal mixtures were obtained, bricks were produced to measure their mechanical resistance by the performance of simple mechanical compression test. Results show that LM resistance is increased by 400% over handmade bricks from the study area. Moreover, the use of waste from mines as raw material for the elaboration of LE shows that their resistance value exceeds 150% of stablished in regulations.