Characteristic Strength of Machine Made First Class Bricks Found in Different Parts of Manipur

International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences
www.ijetmas.com March 2017, Volume 5 Issue 3, ISSN 2349-4476
Characteristic Strength Of Machine Made First Class Bricks

Found In Different Parts Of Manipur
Khwairakpam Sachidananda1, Waikhom Victory2, Moirangthem Johnson Singh3, Moirangthem
Henthoinganba Singh4, Marina Langhu5
1,2,3,4,5
Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Manipur, Manipur
ABSTRACT
Brick is one of the important constituents of building. It composes of 60%-70% of the components of building and played
an important role in determining the strength of the building. In the load bearing wall made of burnt clay bricks, the
compressive strength plays an important role as it has to bear the loads from roof and beams. Manipur is having
different brick farms and the clay materials that used to make the bricks are all different. The physical and mechanical
strength characteristics of bricks mainly depend on the type of soil and its homogeneity. The determination of physical
and mechanical strength of bricks from different places will enable the builders, engineers and the layman person in
determining the right materials for the construction of buildings and structures. In this paper two different 1st class
bricks collected from different farms of Manipur have been tested in term of compressive strength and physical
characteristics. The standard of the machine made bricks has also been checked with the IS standard.
Keywords: Bricks, compressive, Physical, Manipur.
Introduction
Brick is an important component of building and it constitutes an inevitable component of human existence.
Depending on the availability of the material and facility, bricks can be made by hand or by machine. In
modern times the use of clay burnt bricks made by machine is very popular. Clay bricks are generally made of
sand and clay which were burnt at temperatures of 800oC to 1200oC. The bricks are also generally classified
depending on the material used for construction such as clay, fly ash, concrete, sand lime etc. But the current
study will mainly focussed on the clay burnt bricks as it is the most ancient and the most common brick form
found in Manipur. The bricks may be either in the form of structural members (brick bearing roof and beam
structures) as well as non-structural members (infill wall for partition and boundary). In Manipur, the load
bearing bricks are very common as the state is not economically sound and most of the people are under the
poverty lines.
The structural strength and the longevity of the structures mainly depend on the characteristic property of
bricks. Bricks are found in different places of Manipur and its property changes depending on the location of
manufacturing place. The changes in the property of bricks mainly depends on the following factors : 1)
changes of the property of the clay used for manufacturing bricks, 2) regularity of the mixture of clay
material, 3) pebbles or impurity of the matter. The bricks found in Manipur needs to be characterised to
understand the property of bricks found in Manipur as it can changed the concept of design by knowing its
exact properties. Once the property of bricks is vague properly, the designer will be able to design the
structural members properly by taking its volume, density and strength of bricks. Bricks found in Manipur
need to be checked out for its quality in comparison with the IS standard. Since the machine bricks are
becoming very popular now a day because of its economy, low labour and more uniformity, two types of
machine bricks found in different places of Manipur has been investigated to check its characteristics. Based
on the quality of the strength of bricks, bricks are generally classified into 3 types (i..e 1st Class, 2nd Class and
3rd Class) according to the descending order of the quality of bricks. In this paper only the first quality bricks
have been taken into account by choosing the best brick from the brick fields as per IS 5454: 1978. Even
though the bricks are of best quality bricks, the strength may be different as the types of material for the bricks
are different. Researchers (Sarangapani et al., 2002; Deboucha and Hashim, 2011) have studied the
importance of bricks by showing the importance of the strength as well as the physical properties of bricks.
But as per the literature, no one has studied the bricks found in Manipur. So, in this paper an attempt will be
made to compare the strength of bricks found in two different brick farms of Manipur.
The nomenclatures of the bricks have been named as - ―A‖ for brick field 1 and ―B‖ as brick field 2 to avoid
reclamation by the brick farms. This machine made bricks have been checked for its anomalies properties in
364 Khwairakpam Sachidananda, Waikhom Victory, Moirangthem Johnson Singh,
Moirangthem Henthoinganba Singh, Marina Langhu

term of physical and strength characteristics. The detailed of the study has been explained in the following
sections.
Experiment on bricks
Various experimental tests are conducted to know the physical and mechanical strength of burnt clay bricks as
per IS standards. The details of the various tests are discussed below:
1) Physical characterisation of bricks are studied with the following topics:
a) Dimensions and density (i.e., weight per unit volume)
The dimension of bricks is an important element for the characteristic of bricks as it contributes in filling the
partition wall and the load bearing walls. The sizes of bricks depend on the moulding dimensions. The
dimensions of the bricks are measured with plastic scale. The dimension values are taken as the average
values. It may be noted that the density of the bricks are measured by taking average of 10 samples of bricks.
The bricks densities are measured at room temperature. The dimension of the brick correspond to non-
modular sizes of bricks as per IS 1077 (1992). The details of the dimension and density of bricks are shown in
Table 1.
b) Hardness test
The bricks are selected randomly and the hardness has been tested with the sharp nail to check the resistance
against scratches. The bricks showed no sign of scratched when scratched with the nail as shown in Figure 1.
c) Efflorescence
The efflorescence test was carried out as per IS 3495: 1992 Part 3. As per the standard, the bricks are
immersed in water of 25 mm depth for about 24 hours and the bricks were dried out to check the deposition of
white spots due to the efflorescence effect. The conducting of the experiment for efflorescence is shown in
Figure 2.
d) Soundness
The bricks showed the clear metallic sound when two bricks were struck together for all the bricks undertaken
as shown in Figure 3. The reason may be that, all the tested bricks are of 1st class bricks and the quality of
bricks are high.
e) Water absorption test
The water absorption test on bricks are performed as per IS 3495:1992 Part 2. The specimens were dried in
oven maintaining the temperature of 110o C as shown in Figure 4. The dry weights are taken as shown in
Table 2. Then the bricks are immersed in clean water for 24 hours at room temperature and its weight are
taken after wiping out the bricks properly. Water absorption of each specimen are calculated as shown in
Table 2.
2) Compressive strength of brick in UTM (Universal Testing Machine)
The compression testing of brick has been performed in UTM (BSUT 200-JD servo) as per IS 3495:1992 Part
1. The UTM machine was used for the compression testing as it has the capability of controlling the
experiment. The bricks are generally strong under compression and the building of load bearing walls are also
constructed on the basis of this strength. The masonry walls are made of bricks and the strength of masonry
walls depends mainly on the strength of bricks.
For performing the compressive testing of bricks, the unevenness of the bricks is removed and the most
uniform bricks are selected. As the bricks are machine made, the filling of the frog of bricks with cement
mortar is not done as frogs are absent and the bonding of cement mortar is very bad if the frog is not present.
The brick is immersed in water for 3 days and then dried out for 24 hours. The brick specimen is placed flat
horizontally and the lower and upper faced of bricks are covered with plywood’s while placing in the
compressive testing machine as shown in Figure 5.
As per IS standard, the load are applied axially at the rate of 14 N/mm2 per minute till the brick failed.
Following the same process, the brick made at two different places of Manipur as mentioned above has been
tested with the same procedure and the results have been plotted in Figure 6, in term of P (load) vs δ (axial
displacement). The graph in Figure 6 showed curvilinear pattern. The load keep on increasing till the stage
where the brick cannot take no more load and it showed the decrease of loading. The maximum load the brick


can take is noted. The compressive strength is then calculated by dividing the load with the surface area of
brick. The compressive strength of the brick is taken as the average values of the tests as shown in Table 3.
The broken bricks for each brick farms are shown in Figures 6, showing the uniformity texture of both the
bricks.
Result and Discussions

For all the bricks considered, the hardness and the soundness test showed the high quality characteristic
property of bricks as it showed the clear ringing sound and no marking when scratched with the sharp nail.
The reason may be the uniform moulding and mixture of the brick materials, showing good textures of the
sample of bricks with red colour which is an essential property of a good brick. The efflorescence also
showed no formation of white salty spots showing good quality of bricks. As for the water absorption capacity
of bricks, the bricks A and B showed the absorption of 6-11% of dry weight of bricks. The compressive
strength of bricks showed its average strength values as 16.26 N/mm2, 19.20 N/mm2 for A and B bricks. This
concludes that the bricks of Manipur are of high quality bricks. The compressive test showed different failure
pattern of the bricks found at different places. The reason may be the use of different clay materials and the
moulding of bricks.
Conclusion
After systematic study of the bricks found in two different places of Manipur, the following conclusions have
been arrived as follows:
1) The 1st Class machine made bricks found in Manipur are of high strength bricks with the Class
designation of 16-19 N/mm2 as per IS 1077 (1992).
2) The efflorescence is absent in all the bricks tested showing the good quality of bricks.
3) Hardness test gave clear ringing sound showing the good strength of the bricks.
4) The dimension of the bricks showed that the bricks are as per IS standard.
5) The water absorption of the bricks are within 6-11% of dry weight of bricks.
Note :
The test results are totally based only on the tested samples of the brick farms.
Acknowledgments
The writers gratefully acknowledge the help extended by M. Nongthouba Singh (Lecturer, NIT Manipur) and
the HOD of Civil Department for allowing us conducting our experimental work at the Civil Department, NIT
Manipur.
References
Indian Standards (IS), (1978). Methods for sampling of clay building bricks, IS 5454 Bureau of Indian Standards, New
Delhi, India.
Indian Standards (IS), 1077 (1992). Common burnt clay building bricks-specification, IS 1077, 5th Rev., Bureau of Indian
Standards, New Delhi, India.
Indian Standards (IS), (1992a). Indian standard methods of test of burn clay building bricks—Part 1: Determination of
compressive strength, IS 3495, 3rd Rev., Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi, India.
Indian Standards (IS), (1992b). Indian standard methods of test of burn clay building bricks—Part 2: Determination of
water absorption, IS 3495, 3rd Rev., Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi, India.
Sarangapani, G., Venkatarama Reddy, B. V., and Jagadish, K. S. (2002). Structural characteristics of bricks, mortar and
masonry. Journal of. Structural Engineers (India),29(2); 101–107.
Deboucha, S. and Hashim, R. (2011). A review on bricks and stabilized compressed earth blocks. Scientific Research and
Essays Vol. 6(3); 499-506.
UTM (Universal Testing Machine) servo hydraulic universal testing machine, BSUT-200-JD Servo.


Table 1: Average dimensions of bricks and its density.
Brick farms L (length), B (breadth), H (height), Weight Weight/Volume

cm cm cm (gm) ρ, (gm/cm3)
A 23.17 10.24 6.27 3089.35 2.08
B 23.01 10.55 6.42 3190.65 2.05
Table 2: Water absorption capacity of bricks.
Sample Dry weight Wet weight Weight of water % of water

(gm) (gm) absorbed absorbed
A-1 3276.50 3639.50 363.00 11.08
A-2 3014.00 3199.00 185.00 6.14
A-3 3071.00 3359.50 288.50 9.39
B-1 3207.00 3490.00 283.00 8.82

B-2 3201.00 3425.50 224.50 7.01
B-3 3207.00 3550.50 343.50 10.71
Table 3: Compressive strength of bricks.
Brick Samples Compressive strength (N/mm2)

A B
1 2.32 3.41
2 8.79 17.8
3 37.67 36.41
Mean 16.26 19.20

Fig. 1: Typical test for hardness of bricks
Fig. 2: Typical test for efflorescence
Fig. 3: Typical soundness test of brick Fig. 4: Typical drying of bricks in oven

a) A- brick in UTM b) Failure of A- brick
c) Texture of A- brick
d) B- brick in UTM e) Failure of B-brick
f) Texture of B- brick
Fig. 5: Typical axial compression loading of bricks, failure pattern, texture of broken bricks
for A brick (a,b,c); B brick (d,e,f).

900
800
700
600
P (kN)
500 A1-brick
400 A2-brick
300
B1-brick
200
B2-brick
100
0
0 2 4 6 8
δ (mm)
Fig. 6: Typical plot of P (load) vs δ (axial displacement) for axial compression of burnt clay
bricks of A and B brick samples.


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International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences

www.ijetmas.com March 2017, Volume 5 Issue 3, ISSN 2349-4476