ABSTRACT

A vision to offer the residents

of Mbarara City with fast
affordable housing using
interlocking bricks.
Kankiriho Arinda Daisy
2022/CVE/025/PS Kansiime
Kenneth
2022/CVE/026/PS
ANALYSIS, DESIGN AND UTILIZATION OF ENHANCED SOIL Abenaitwe Christmas
INTERLOCKING BRICKS FOR AFFORDABLE AND QUALITY 2022/CVE/068/PS Ongica
James
HOUSING.
2022/CVE/053/PS
PROJECT WORK INTRODUCTION TO CIVIL
ENGINEERING
REQUIREMENT
Civil engineering aims to better the quality of human life, this is achieved through development of
affordable approaches that utilize locally available materials, placing emphasis on the environmental
concerns, reducing air pollution, reducing raw material consumption utilization of recycled materials,
low-energy buildings, and lowering transportation costs.
Housing is one of the most essential human needs as ranked by Abraham Maslow. In most developing
countries housing is inadequate and the housing backlog has been increasing rapidly.
Mortarless construction methods prove the following advantages:
● Increase of construction productivity,
● Reduction in construction duration and labor
● Reduced construction cost.
This is largely because of technological simplicity and local resource dependence.
The cost of establishing a standard home remain high and this can be directly correlated to the
depleting naturally existing materials that are necessary for construction, the technology utilized and
various socio-economic factors mainly; the high cost of land and building materials.
With majority of the population living in the poverty range and still unable to afford proper housing,
this project will offer a sustainable approach that utilizes interlocking bricks and mortarless
technology.

OBJECTIVES.

This study is established on the following objectives.


To study the suitability of mortarless wall with interlocking bricks as the best approach for
affordable and quality housing.
 To develop affordable approaches that utilize locally available building materials and
technology.
 To provide a cost analysis for the standard homes constructed using interlocking bricks and
mortarless technology
 To conduct the feasibility study on the efficiency of interlocking bricks and mortarless
building technology as a solution to costly housing in Mbarara City.
 To develop an environmentally friendly home construction approach.
 To conduct a balanced social, economic, and environmental study on the use of mortarless
technology. 
ANALYSIS

This study will analyze the use of interlocking stabilized soil bricks with mortarless technology. The
analysis will be based on the following parameters.

(i) The suitability of the technology

 The time required to adopt to the new approaches.

 The durability and advantages compared to existing ones.
 The various forms of interlocking bricks; solid, perforated or hollow
bricks.
  The suitability of a designer to adjust to the shape suitable for various
designs.

URBAN PLANNING.

Housing is one of the most essential human needs as ranked by Abraham Maslow. In most parts of the
country, there is a large a large housing shortage and this is only increasing. Most settlements in
Mbarara District for both trading centers and far remote areas are mostly poor and the costs of land
and housing remains high.
The population of Uganda is growing at a quite large rate and cities such as Mbarara must establish
proper housing for the rapidly expanding homesteads.

it is necessary to provide affordable housing facilities to rural and urban locations through innovative
strategies and development to increase the utilization of locally available building materials.

POPULATION

The population of Uganda is about 50.05 Million according to worldometer.info an online data
analysis and AI tool. This sets Uganda at a rank of 31 on the list of most populous countries.
Fro 2025-2030, the population is projected to a 2.59% growth rate and a 2.39% growth rate from
2030-2035. This implies that Uganda will have a population of nearly 75 million people by 2040.
According to worldometer, Mbarara is the fourth most populous city, only behind Kampala, Gulu and
Lira.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT

The depletion of naturally existing resource such as soil which serves a great purpose in the
construction industry is a challenge that engineering must take seriously. This gap in availability has
affected the standards of life and greatly impacted modern building methods
 The energy requirements for the production of the bricks.
 Availability of the materials for the largely demanding construction industry.
 The impact of these energy generation processes, manufacturing processes, and technology
involved.
 Involvement of communities in manufacturing and brick-laying processes.
 Affordability of mortarless technology.
 The willingness of the masses to meet the demands of this technology.

Bricks in Masonry Construction.

The review of the existing brick design and models will facilitate the transition to new brick designs
that are interlocking and stabilized.
Standard bricks are of standard dimension; 225 x 112.5 x 75mm or 215 x 102.5 x 65mm.
Masonry bricks can be classified using their shape. Within this category, we find
solid bricks which are perfect rectangle

Types of Bricks

 Perforated bricks are characterized by having holes of volume beyond one-fourth of the total
volume of the brick.
 frogged bricks that have depression in one or more brick faces. The depression in frogged
bricks can’t exceed one-fourth of the total volume of the brick.
 cellular bricks that have depressions but beyond one-fourth of the total brick’s volume

Clay Bricks: mainly manufactured by making the brick mixture in molds and then pressing it.
They can be
 unfired clay bricks. This is when the bricks are left to dry in open air,
 fired clay bricks. This is when bricks are fired to high temperatures.
Sand Lime Bricks:
Sand lime bricks are made from sand, fly ash, and lime are mixed and molded under pressure.

Engineering bricks; mainly applied in situations that demands where strength, low water porosity or
acid (flue gas) resistance are needed

Materials and manufacturing

Soil is a major raw material for stabilized brick;
Soil (Clay), is mostly recommended for the well-known advantages such as;
 high thermal mass
 good acoustic parameters
  absorption and moisture transmission
 extensive plastic possibilities
 simple to process.
 recyclability.
Production of Interlocking Stabilized Soil Bricks

The production process will involve the processing of soil supplied by the earth.
The three main constituents include; cement, water and clay.
Cement used as a stabilizer to enhance strength and durability. The composition is kept in the range of
3 to 10 %.

Quality Control objectives

 to close monitor materials, methods, and the production process.
 to identify and inspect the soil for sand, fines, and gravel.
 To adjust gravel sizes to a limit of 3-5 mm.
 To determine the fine fraction of the soil and the cohesion factor. The cohesion factor of the
soil gives a good performance to the ISSB.
 To test the soil testing in order to set a proper soil-to-stabilizer ratio.

COST ANALYSIS

The use of Mortarless Technology reduces or even removes a number of operations:

 Mortaring joints
 aligning operations (leveling and straightening),
 rendering. from reduced construction operations
 Mortarless Technology, reduces construction costs by 60% due to the simplicity of the
construction with this technology.
 Use of less material and labor

Cost determinants in mortarless walling

The cost will depend on the following operations

Bricklaying (BL).
 Determined for each brick.
 The cost includes the material for making the brick, the operating cost, and the labor
involved in bricklaying
Pointing/jointing (P/J)
 determined according to the cement, sand, and water required.
Rendering/plastering (R/P)
 Determined per square meter of the wall plastered.
Wall-strengthening (WS).
 Achieved by pouring grout through vertical holes.
 MortarlessTechnology ( MT ) Rm
Estimation of and are key determinants.
Cement Blocks( CB) RL

Cost comparison of one square meter wall Mortarless Technology vs Cement Blocks (Uganda
Shillings)

Interlocking Soil stabilized Conventional Sand Cement

Bricks(per square meter) Blocks (CB)(per square meter)
Stages Of Wall
S.No
Construction
ISSB ISSB Solid CB-1 Solid CB-2
230mm 150mm 230mm
150mm
1 Bricklaying (BL) 12408 18560 23,040 35,840
2 Jointing/Pointing (J/P) 0 0 1913 2542
3 Rendering/Plastering (R/P) 3673 3673 11760 11760
4 Wall Strengthening (WS) 800 0 0 0

  Total Cost 16881 22233 36,713 50,142

Total cost for each type of
  17725 23345 38549 52649
wall including 5%

Mortarless technology 17725

= =0.459
Cement Blocks 38549

The value of MT labor cost being 9% of the conventional total cost, and therefore making MT total
cost equals 44%. How-ever MT realizes 56% cost saving compared to CB.

The table compares the average 150mm equivalent costs (UGX 16881 and 22233 for 230mm) of
Mortarless Technology (MT) and Cement Blocks (CB). The table proves that mortarless technology
reduces construction cost by 45.9%
From calculation,

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

This will design the basis for establishing the system and its propagation.
The development of this technology requires local authorities and investors to invest in the
production of Interlocking brick, and construction based on mortarless technology.

Rick Assessment.

(ii) The study of mortarless technology proves feasible. However, very little data exists in
regard to the following cases;
 Deterioration data and mode.
  Probable failure mechanisms.
 The major maintenance demands.
 The common construction procedures.
 The possible design flexibilities.
 The dependence of wall accuracy on brick alignment.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

Land acquisition and home construction largely affect the environment. This study will utilize
various local regulations, guidelines as set NEMA, and environmental protection policies.
The impacts of this approach include;
 Degradation as soil is still the raw material.
 The water demands for the project will be hard to sustain
 The energy demands

The use of interlocking stabilized-soil bricks saves approximately 50% of cement, and reduces
emission carbon dioxide by nearly 40% due to cement production.

SYNTHESIS AND EVALUATION

The project is designed to utilize the material efficiently.

Interlocking stabilized-soil bricks (ISSB) can save cement in both brick production and bricklaying
compared to Conventional blocks (CB).
 Site planning provides soil from foundation trenches, the septic tank and the soak-away pit.
 The design of suitable interlocking bricks
 Developing best brick laying practices
 Looking into the technology and skill required to complete the work
 Ensuring that perfectly close bricks are manufactured and used.
 Developing sustainable and environmentally strong approaches

EXECUTION

The project will be presented to clients that are interested in innovative methods that are efficient and
cost friendly.
The project will be executed by having the concept approved by authorities and setting up an
engineering company to establish it. The firm will establish the necessary legal and financial status,
experience, capabilities and equipment to complete the work.
The client, prospective contractors are prequalified based on specific criteria which include; legal and
financial status, experience of the firm, qualifications of key personnel and equipment available.
The Interlocking bricks will be manufacture in carefully watched units and delivered to different sites
as needed.
The project requires training of al key stake holders for the development of technology. These
include, brick makers, brick layers and potential clients.
REFERENCES

Al-Fakih A, Mohammed B S, Nuruddin F, and Nikbakht E, (2017) Development of Interlocking

Masonry Bricks and its’ Structural Behavior: A Review Paper. IOP Conf. Series: Earth and
Environmental Science 140 (2018) 012127 doi :10.1088/1755-1315/140/1/012127

Ahmed Z, Othman S, Yunus B and Mohamed A (2011) Behaviour of Masonry Wall Constructed
using Interlocking Soil Cement Bricks World Acad. Sci. Eng. Technol. 60 1263-9

Fay L, Cooper P and de Morais H F (2014) Innovative interlocked soil–cement block for the
construction of masonry to eliminate the settling mortar Constr. Build. Mater. 52 391-5

Javan. A R, Seifla. H, Xua. S, Xiea. Y M. (2017) Design of a new type of interlocking brick and
evaluation of its dynamic performance. Centre for Innovative Structures and Materials, School of
Engineering, RMIT University.

Khan S S and Deshmukh A S (2015) Mortarless Masonry with Interlocking Blocks Int. J. Res. Eng.
Sci. Technol. 1 314-9

Osman S A, Mohamed Z S, Sulaiman A and Ismail M F (2014) Experimental analysis of Interlocking

load bearing wall brickool system Key Eng. Mater. 594-595 439-43

Kintingu S.H, (2009) Design of Interlocking Bricks For Enhanced Wall Construction Flexibility,
Alignment Accuracy and Load Bearing. The University of Warwick, School of Engineering.
https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2768/1/WRAP_THESIS_Kintingu_2009.pdf

Al-Fakih A , Mohammed B S , Nuruddin F, and Nikbakht E, (2017) Development of Interlocking

Masonry Bricks and its’ Structural Behaviour: A Review Paper. IOP Conf. Series: Earth and
Environmental Science 140 (2018) 012127 doi :10.1088/1755-1315/140/1/012127
Research Location: APEX CONCRETE PRODUCTS LTD(Koranorya)
We looked at different companies but majority of the ones in Mbarara do not make interlocking bricks
because it is has not yet become a popular product but are aware that it much cheaper. It was common
among all that materials were got from the same location that is Floor sand from Nyeihanga, River
sand from Kashaka .