UNIVERSITY OF DUHOK

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
CIVIL DEOARTMENT
MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY

Compressive strength of the bricks experiment

STUDENT NAME: AYAD MUHAMMAD ABDULAZIZ

GROUP NO.: A2

SUPERVISOR: MR. AVRAZ

EXPERIMET NO.:1
EXPERIMET DATE: 4/11/2023
1- Introduction:
Bricks are used for many purpose such as walkways or facing buildings or in non-
bearing walls, but when we use it for foundation or bearing walls. The brick must be
strong enough to resist compression stress which is applying by loads of structure component
on bricks. In bearing walls and foundation we have to Compressive strength of the bricks test
for safety. It refers to the maximum load that the bricks can withstand against before break.

2- Equipment:

1) Compressive testing machine. 2) Measurement tape.

3) Plywood sheet (3mm) thick. 4) Electric oven.

5) Electric balance.
3- Preparation & proportions:
 The brick that we choose for the experiment should be un damaged and the

angels of the bricks shouldn’t be broken.

 The brick should not have been through the chemical reaction that is
efflorescence.
 The brick shouldn’t be less than 7 days old.
 The brick shouldn’t have any attached material to the brick therefore Removing
it by using a brush.

4- Experimental Procedure:

1. Select 5 bricks at random from the stack of bricks , but we did this test for only
two bricks.

2. Dry the test specimens in a ventilated oven at (110 to 115°C) for not less than

24 h and until two successive weightings at intervals of 2h show an increment

of loss not greater than 0.2 % of the last previously determined weight of the

specimen. if it was not get it into the oven again and check its weight again,

until it become less then (0.2%), do that because if it was more than (0.2%) that

mean a lot of water molecules evaporated in the oven, potentially there is more to go

3. Cool the specimens in a drying room maintained at a temperature of (24 ±

8°C), with a relative humidity between 30 and 70 % and weigh each one
4. Measure the length and width of the brick to get gross area do this for upper

and lower surface then add them to each other then divide them by 2

you’ll get average area 𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒓 𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒂 + 𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒂
= 𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒂
𝟐
5. Take a brick to the Compressive testing machine. And place the wood ply

On the top and bottom of brick

6. Applied load until failure occur, and record the maximum applied load before

failure, we call it maximum load (P), we divided maximum load to the average area
𝒇𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅(𝑷)
to get compressive strength. = 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒉
𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒂

Note: Speed of Testing— The load is applied to the specimens uniformly by using the

compression machine. A rate of loading (0.25 MPa/sec.) is applied.

7. took the compressive strength of another brick that went through the same
procedure and added it to the compressive strength, and divided it by (2), the result
of that is called average compressive strength.

compressive strength1+compressive strength 2

=avrage compressive strength
2
5- Calculations and Results:
*Calculations
Here is all calculation that you will do it in Compressive strength of the bricks
experiment

1. Find the area of upper and lower surface by using

A=W*L
A=area of the surface (mm2)
W=width of the surface (mm)
L=long of the surface (mm)
2. Then fine the average area by using

3. After that find compressive strength.

P
C=
A

C= Compressive strength of the brick, (N/mm2) or (MPa).

P= maximum load, (kg) or (N), indicated by the testing machine.
A= average of the gross areas of the upper and lower bearing surfaces of the brick,
(mm2)

4. Finally find average compressive strength by using

C1 +C 2
=C . avg
2
C.avg= average compressive strength of the brick, (N/mm2) or (MPa¬).
C1= compressive strength of the first brick.
C2= compressive strength of the second brick.
 *Results

Specimen Lower Upper AVG. Failure Compressive Average

# Gross Gross Area Load Strength Compressive
Area Area (mm2) (N) (MPa) strength
(mm2) (mm2) (MPa)
A2-1 27018 27018 27018 893580 33.07 27.18

A2-2 27485 27370 27427.5 584070 21.295

We used all previous calculations we had got these results in this table.

We had got this result of our experiment (27.18 MPa) like average compressive
strength of the bricks, and this number can classify our bricks to

now if it is good enough for our buildings, but (28MPa) can be classified differently
based on where you live.

Compressive strength N/mm2

Specification: Grade
Iraqi Standard Specification (ISS)
Avg. of bricks individual
specifies (recommends) following A 18 16
values of compressive strength for
each class of bricks B 13 11
C 9 7
Note:

A: for foundation and other load bearing structure in sever exposure condition.

B: Ditto but with less sever (mild) exposure condition.

C: Non-bearing structures and mild exposure condition.

 According to (ISS) those bricks that we had used for our test are with grade (A)
and we can use it for foundation and other load bearing structure.
6- Discussion:

According to our experiment these bricks are classified as a brick that can stand

against a lot of load and sever condition. But error of our experiment was that we

only did test on two bricks only we should do for five but we don’t have a lot of time.

If we used another rate of loading we should get another answers and the experiment

Would be with many errors. For this experiment we should use (0.25 MPa/sec.) as

rate of loading.

If we measured the area of bricks except holes we would never get previous results

because we are not doing the the test for real brick we are doing for it materials.

if we did this test with another three bricks if two of them have Compressive

Strength more than (18 MPa) and another one was less than (16 MPa) we wouldn’t

say our bricks are classified as grade (A) and it would be (B) or (C), However we

couldn’t use them for foundation and other load bearing structure.

Conclusions:

We can’t use bricks for every thing because we don’t know how much load that

bricks can resist. if we use bricks for foundation or bearing walls with out know

it resistance there will be a big problems because some of them would break

or even the structure would collapse.

7- References:

Construction material lecture.

DATA SHEET