STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF MASONRY WITH USED BRICKS

Abstract

The basic advantage of masonry construction lies in the fact that it promotes use of indigeneous materials of construction and saves the scared materials of construction namely cement and steel. It is labour intensive and, therefore, more suitable to country like India. Further a masonry wall performs a variety of function in construction namely supporting loads, sub dividing space, providing thermal and acoustical insulation affording fire and weather protection etc. and is thus economical to conventional R.C. structures for low rise construction. In spite of all these advantages and extensive use of masonry construction for the last so many years, the investigation of the properties of masonry using used bricks or we can say recycling of good bricks in masonry construction- have not been well established. Because sometimes it become uneconomical to use new bricks in making lowly stressed masonry structures. The re-use of bricks would also help in solving the problem of their disposal as well as to over come the acute shortage of dwelling units. In the first part of the present study, the properties of the constituent materials namely two type of conventional used bricks (one of normal strength and one of medium strength mechanised bricks extracted from tested models), the oriiinal properties of which were known and the two type of mortors used were investigated. Also the properties of one set of new and the corresponding used bricks (conventional type of same mark), have been also investigated.