5/30/2018

Construction Technology
‫ﺗﮑﻧﺎﻟوژی ﺗوﻟﯾد ﺳﺎﺧﺗﻣﺎن‬

‫ﭘوھﻧﯾﺎر ﻋﺑداﻟﺑﺎری رﺣﯾﻣﯽ‬

Masonry Construction in Bricks and Blocks 2

Masonry Construction in Bricks
and Blocks
‫ﻣﻌﻣوره ھﺎی ﺧﺷﺗﯽ و ﺑﻼﮐﯽ‬
Why should we be starting a book on building
construction with a discussion of bricks and blocks?
Quite simply because bricks are one of the major
construction materials instantly associated with
construction in the mind of the novice or lay person,
but more importantly because the sizes chosen for
the manufacture of bricks and blocks affect
practically everything in a building except the
thickness of the coats of paint or the coats of plaster.
This will be discussed in more detail as we proceed.

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Masonry Construction in Bricks and Blocks 3

Masonry Construction in Bricks and
Blocks … Cont…
1) Bricks and blocks can be made from a variety of
materials other than fired clay or brick earth, e.g.
calcium silicate and concretes.
2) Bricks and blocks can be obtained in a variety of
sizes and types and kinds.
3) Bricks and blocks can be made in a variety of
shapes other than the standard rectilinear shape
discussed in this text but special shapes are the
subject of British Standard 4729, Dimensions of
bricks of special shapes and sizes.

Masonry Construction in Bricks and Blocks 4

Masonry Construction in Bricks and
Blocks … Cont…
4) Bricks and blocks can be cut into different
shapes and these we will discuss later in
the chapter.

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Masonry Construction in Bricks and Blocks 5

Bricks and blocks standards and
dimensions
1. Bricks and blocks of fired clay are the
subject of British Standard BS
2. Brick is defined as a unit having all
dimensions less than 337.5 × 225 × 112.5
mm.
3. Block is defined as a unit having one or
more dimensions greater than those of the
largest possible brick.

Bricks 6
BRICKS
Terminology
The surfaces of a brick have names:
 Top and bottom surfaces are beds
 Ends are headers or header faces
 Sides are stretchers or stretcher faces.
Mortar joints
 Mortar placed horizontally below or on top of a
brick is called a bed.
 Mortar placed vertically between bricks is
called a perpend.

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Bricks 7
BRICKS
Terminology
The surfaces of a brick have names:

Bricks 8
Terminology … Cont …
Bricks and blocks are made using mortar; they
are not made in cement. Cement, usually a dry
powder, may or may not be an ingredient in a
mortar depending on the type of wall, its
situation, etc.
Mortars are mixed with water into a plastic
mass just stiff enough to support any masonry
unit pressed into them. This is an important
and fundamental issue which is discussed in
detail a little later in the slides.

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Brick 9
Brick sizes
Bricks are made in many sizes; however, we
will use only one size in this text – the
standard metric brick. A standard metric brick
has coordinating dimensions of:
225 × 112.5 × 75 mm and working
dimensions of:
215 × 102.5 × 65.
Why two sizes? The coordinating dimensions
are a measure of the physical space taken up
by a brick together with the mortar.

Brick 10
Brick sizes … Cont…
This mortar is required on one bed, one header face
and one stretcher face. The working dimensions are
the sizes to which manufacturers will try to make the
bricks. Methods of manufacture for many units and
components are such that the final piece is not quite
the size expected but it can fall within defined limits.
This can be due to things like shrinkage or distortion
when drying out, firing, etc.
The difference between the working and coordinating
dimensions of a brick is 10 mm and this difference is
taken up with the layer of mortar into which the bricks
are pressed when laying. The working dimensions are
also known as the nominal size of a brick.

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Brick 11
Nominal sizing
The term nominal sizing is used to describe a
size which is subject to slight variation during the
manufacture of a component or unit. The
variation – larger or smaller – allowed is generally
given in a British Standard. The differences – plus
and /or minus – can be different.
The slight variation in size of individual bricks is
allowed for by pressing the brick into the mortar
layer a greater or lesser amount but always using
up to the coordinating dimension or space of
225 × 112.5 × 75.

Bricks 12
Nominal sizes of BRICKS
a brick
Terminology
The surfaces of a brick have names:

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Brick 13
Durability of bricks
Durability of bricks is very important when
building in situations where freezing would be
a problem and where the soluble salt content
of the bricks would cause problems with the
mortar – see sulphate attack later in the text.
British Standard 3921 gives classifications of
durability in terms of frost resistance and salt
content, and an extract from the pr´ecis of BS
3921 is given here:

Brick 14
Durability of bricks … Cont …
Durability of brickwork depends on two factors
which arise from the use of any particular
brick:
1. Resistance to frost and

2. The soluble salts content.

Frost resistance falls into three classes:

1. Frost resistant (F),

2. Moderately Frost Resistant (M)

3. and Not Frost Resistant (O).

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Brick 15

Durability of bricks … Cont …

Soluble salts content is classed as either:
1. Low (L) or

2. Normal (N).

So, one could have a brick which is frost

resistant with normal soluble salt content and
this would be classified as FN. Similarly a
brick which had no frost resistance and had
low soluble salt content would be classed as
OL.

Brick 16
Coordinating sizes
The coordinating sizes allow the bricks to be
built together in a number of different ways,
illustrated in Figures. It is important to build
brickwork to the correct coordinating size for
the particular working size of brick specified.
Other components such as sills, lintels, door
and window frames, etc. are manufactured to
fit into openings whose size is calculated on
the basis of whole or cut bricks displaced.

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Brick 17
Coordinating sizes … Cont …

Brick 18
Coordinating sizes … Cont …

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Brick 19
Coordinating sizes … Cont …
The height of the lintel is shown as three
courses plus the joints between them
measuring 3 × 65 + 2 × 10 = 215 mm.
The width of the window opening must be a
multiple of half a brick plus the perpends, e.g.
8 × 102.5 + 9 × 10 = 880 mm.
The length of the lintel has to be the width of
the opening plus the pieces which are built
into the wall – the rests.

Brick 20

Coordinating sizes … Cont …

Wall rests vary according to the load but
assume in this case they are half the length of
a brick each, less the mortar required in the
perpends between the lintel ends and the
adjacent brickwork.
The length of the lintel is therefore
880 + 2 × 102.5 = 1085

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Brick 21
Coordinating sizes … Cont …

Brick 22
Types of brick by shape
1. Solid: bricks can just be rectilinear pieces of
material, and these are described as solid,
2. Frog: brick might have a depression in one or both
beds called a frog. Frogs can be quite shallow or
quite deep but they will not exceed 20% of the
volume in total.

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Brick 23
Types of brick by shape … Cont..
3. Cellular: they having cavities or
depressions exceeding 20% of the volume
in total, or

Brick 24
Types of brick by shape … Cont..
4. Perforated: holes not exceeding 20% of
the volume in total; minimum 30% solid
across width of brick.

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Brick 25
Kinds of brick by function
Bricks can be manufactured to fulfil different
functions, i.e. strength, resistance to water
absorption, decoration or for no particular
function other than to build a wall and be
covered over with plaster or render.
The British Standard recognizes five types
classified by function or end use, as shown in
Table on the next slide.

Brick 26
Kinds of brick by function…Cont...
Brick types by end use (compressive strength
and water absorption).

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Brick 27
Kinds of brick by function…Cont...
The vast majority of bricks used are of the ‘All other’
category, the compressive strength being perfectly
adequate for all but the most severe loadings. The
‘No limits’ category for water absorption must of
course be tempered with any requirement to resist
weather penetration of a wall. It would be foolish to
build an external wall of facing brick if these bricks
were very absorbent. On the other hand a water
absorption less than required by damp proof course
(DPC) or engineering bricks would be an
unnecessary expense and might even be counter
productive in the long term.

Brick 28
Brick materials
Bricks are made form:
1) Fired clay or brick earth,
2) Bricks are also manufactured from calcium
silicate (BS 187 and 6649)
3) Concrete (BS 6073). Standard metric-sized
bricks are manufactured in both kinds.
Shapes of concrete bricks differ from those
in clay and calcium silicate.
Different strengths apply to all kinds of bricks.

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Brick 29
Brick materials … Cont …
In parts of the UK a naturally occurring mixture
of clay and coal has been quarried or mined.
This clay can be formed into bricks and fired in
traditional brick kilns but uses less fuel because
of the entrained coal particles. In Scotland the
resulting bricks are known as composition
bricks. They display a rather burnt look on the
outer faces and when cut the core is frequently
quite black. They are only used for common
brickwork (see later is this chapter).

Brick 30
The bonding of bricks to form
walls
Bonding of bricks refers to the practice of laying the
bricks in layers or courses and in any of a number of
patterns or bonds to form a wall of a homogeneous
construction, i.e. the individual bricks overlap each
other in adjacent layers, the pattern alternating in
adjacent layers or after a number of similar layers.
The patterns in these layers are formed with whole
and cut bricks as well as with bricks manufactured
to a ‘special shape’ other than the standard
rectilinear one.

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Brick 31
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …
The most simple cut is the half brick, which
can be described as cutting a brick along a
plane vertical to its bed, along the center of its
short axis. shows the dimensions of a whole
brick and below it the dimensions of a brick cut
in half – a half batt. Note that the half batt is
not a true half of a brick length as there must
always be an allowance made for the thickness
of the mortar used in building, 10 mm.

Brick 32
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …

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Brick 33
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …
This most simple of cuts makes the building
of walls with straight, vertical ends possible.

Brick 34
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …

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Brick 35
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …

Brick 36
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …

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Brick 37
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …

Brick 38
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …

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Brick 39
The bonding of bricks to form
walls … Cont …

Brick 40

Convention on thicknesses of
walls
Thicknesses of walls are not generally given in
millimeters but in multiples of ‘half a brick’
(which of course equals 102.5 mm) plus the
intervening thickness of mortar (10 mm) where
appropriate. So a ‘half brick’ thick wall would be
102.5 mm thick, a ‘one brick’ thick wall 215 mm
thick, a ‘one and a half brick’ thick wall would
be 327.5 mm thick, and so on.

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Brick 41
Convention on thicknesses of
walls …. Cont ….
This is a particularly helpful device when drawing
details, plans and sections, etc. as well as in the
preparation of contract documentation such as
specifications of workmanship and material and bills
of quantities. Many of those documents can be pre-
prepared in standard form if this terminology is
adopted when describing brickwork, and then by the
simple addition of a statement regarding the size of
the bricks to be used the whole becomes related to
that simple, short statement of the size. Figure on
next slides illustrates this explanations.

Brick 42
Convention on thicknesses of
walls …. Cont ….
Half brick thick wall

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Brick 43
Convention on thicknesses of
walls …. Cont ….
One brick thick wall

Brick 44
Convention on thicknesses of
walls …. Cont ….
One and a half brick thick wall

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Brick 45
Types of bond
We will illustrate bonds by showing what takes
place at three important points in any wall
construction:
1. The end of the wall,
called a scuntion or
reveal.
2. The junction of two walls
at right angles, called an
intersection.
3. The right-angled corner
of a wall, called a quoin.

Brick 46
Stretcher or common bond
Stretcher or common bond is the first and most
simple bond. the characteristics of this bond are:
1. walls of half brick thickness, this is the only
practical bond which can be used on a wall of
this thickness, although we can build ‘mock’
bonds of other kinds.
2. Only shows stretchers on general face except
for occasional closers and half batts used to
maintain bond at quoins, scuntions and
intersections.

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Brick 47
Stretcher or common bond…Cont..

Half brick thick wall in stretcher bond

Brick 48
English bond
 This is the strongest
bond,
 This bond maximizes the
strength of the wall.
 It is used on walls one
brick thick and upwards.
 Pattern on the face of
the wall shows distinctive
courses of headers and
stretchers.

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Brick 49
English bond … Cont…
One brick thick wall in English bond.

Brick 50
English bond … Cont…
One and a half brick thick wall in English bond.

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Brick 51
Flemish bond
 Not such a strong
bond as English bond.
 It is used on walls one
brick thick and
upwards.
 Note how the
sectional bond
changes as the wall
increases in
thickness.

Brick 52
Flemish bond
 Not such a strong
bond as English bond.
 It is used on walls one
brick thick and
upwards.
 Note how the
sectional bond
changes as the wall
increases in
thickness.

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Brick 53
Flemish bond … Cont…
One brick thick wall in Flemish bond.

Brick 54
Flemish bond … Cont…
One and a half brick thick wall in Flemish bond.

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Brick 55
Quetta bond
Note that on this drawing the hatched portion is a
void, not the sectional bond. This bond was an
attempt to produce a more weather resistant form of
wall than the one brick solid wall commonly used in
housing at the time, without using any more bricks or
splitting the wall into two layers joined with wall ties.
The idea never took off as the brick which protrudes
from one vertical layer and touches the other merely
serves to draw moisture from the outside to the inside
face of the wall.
The bricks are all laid ‘on edge’, thus the wall ends up
one and one third bricks thick

Brick 56
Quetta bond … Cont …
Building the bond with brick on edge poses a few problems,
so for resolving these problems:
1. Bricks to be exposed on the face should have plain beds
– no frogs, cavities or perforations.
2. If the wall is to be rendered or plastered then choose
bricks with very shallow frogs or very small perforations
can be used.
3. If the wall is covered over in some other way, then the
size of frog etc. doesn’t matter
4. Coverings used could include vertical tiling, slating or
cladding with weather boarding or other sheet material.
5. All of these coverings would overcome the problem of
moisture crossing the wall.

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Brick 57
Quetta bond … Cont …
One and one third brick thick quetta bond

Brick 58
Quetta bond … Cont…
One & one third brick thick wall in Quetta bond.

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Brick 59
Quetta bond … Cont …
Walls with this bond have been used as the
basis for part brick/part reinforced concrete walls
with reinforcing rods set in the gaps and, when
the brickwork is complete and the mortar
hardened, concrete poured into the spaces.
All-in-all, not an economic solution to keeping
out the weather when the cost of over cladding
is added, but quite suitable for non-inhabitable
buildings or garden or retaining walls, especially
with the concrete fill and reinforcement for the
latter.

Brick 60
Scotch and garden wall bonds
Neither of these bonds is as strong as Flemish bond
but they are used in situations where strength is not
such an issue, e.g. garden walls.

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Brick 61
Scotch and garden wall bonds
Neither of these bonds is as strong as Flemish bond
but they are used in situations where strength is not
such an issue, e.g. garden walls.

Brick 62
Scotch and garden wall bonds.. Co.
Scotch and garden wall bonds
.

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Brick 63
Scotch and garden wall bonds …
Cont

Brick 64
Rattrap bond
As in Quetta bond, the
bricks are laid on edge,
resulting in an
interesting face pattern.
The notes regarding
Quetta bond apply
equally to Rattrap bond,
with an even lesser
chance of keeping
weather effects out of
the building.

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Brick 65
Rattrap bond … Cont …
A stronger bond than Quetta, it could be used
for industrial or agricultural buildings and of
course can be made more weatherproof by
over-cladding. The bond is usually one
stretcher to one header but it can also be built
with three stretchers to one header, as shown
in next slide Note that it is always an odd
number of stretchers but never more than
three as this weakens the bond considerably.

Brick 66
Rattrap bond … Cont …

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Brick 67
Rattrap bond … Cont …

Brick 68
Rattrap bond … Cont …

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Brick 69
Vertical alignment
Before leaving the patterns of bond, the vertical
alignment of perpends must be studied.
Two points in particular:
1) Perpends are never built immediately above each
other, i.e. in adjacent courses, on the face of a
wall
2) Perpends can be partly built above each other
within the body or thickness of the wall
3) Perpends continuous through adjacent
courses are known as ris-bond and the joints
are known as risbond joints.

Brick 70
Vertical alignment … Cont …

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Brick 71
Honeycomb brickwork
This is a method of building a
half brick thick wall similar to
stretcher or common bond but
leaving a space between every
brick in each course, Therefore
the bond can be by quarters or
thirds, which describes the
overlap of bricks in adjacent
courses. With a quarter lap the
void is half a brick wide, and
with a lap of a third, the void is
a third of a brick wide.

Brick 72
Honeycomb brickwork … Cont…
This bond is used when building short support
walls under ground floors which in turn are
suspended over a void. The holes in the wall allow
for a free flow of air in the underfloor void.

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