Brick

A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements

and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term brick
denotes a unit primarily composed of clay, but is now also used
informally to denote units made of other materials or other chemically
cured construction blocks. Bricks can be joined using mortar, adhesives
or by interlocking.
Bricks are usually produced at brickworks in numerous classes, types,
materials, and sizes which vary with region, and are produced in bulk
quantities.
Block is a similar term referring to a rectangular building unit composed
of clay or concrete, but is usually larger than a brick. Lightweight bricks
(also called lightweight blocks) are made from expanded clay aggregate.
Fired bricks are one of the longest-lasting and strongest building
materials, sometimes referred to as artificial stone, and have been used
since c. 4000 BC. Air-dried bricks, also known as mudbricks, have a
history older than fired bricks, and have an additional ingredient of a
mechanical binder such as straw.
Bricks are laid in courses and numerous patterns known as bonds,
collectively known as brickwork, and may be laid in various kinds of
mortar to hold the bricks together to make a durable structure.
Types of brick
There are thousands of types of bricks that are named for their
use, size, forming method, origin, quality, texture, and/or materials.

Categorized by manufacture method:

 Extruded – made by being forced through an opening in a steel

die, with a very consistent size and shape.
 Wire-cut – cut to size after extrusion with a tensioned wire
which may leave drag marks
 Moulded – shaped in moulds rather than being extruded
 Machine-moulded – clay is forced into moulds using
pressure
1
  Handmade – clay is forced into moulds by a person
 Dry-pressed – similar to soft mud method, but starts with a
much thicker clay mix and is compressed with great force.
Categorized by use:

 Common or building – A brick not intended to be visible, used

for internal structure
 Face – A brick used on exterior surfaces to present a clean
appearance
 Hollow – not solid, the holes are less than 25% of the brick
volume
 Perforated – holes greater than 25% of the brick volume
 Keyed – indentations in at least one face and end to be used
with rendering and plastering
 Paving – brick intended to be in ground contact as a walkway or
roadway
 Thin – brick with normal height and length but thin width to be
used as a veneer
Specialized use bricks:

 Chemically resistant – bricks made with resistance to chemical

reactions
 Acid brick – acid resistant bricks
 Engineering – a type of hard, dense, brick used where strength,
low water porosity or acid (flue gas) resistance are needed.
Further classified as type A and type B based on their
compressive strength
 Accrington – a type of engineering brick from England
 Fire or refractory – highly heat-resistant bricks
 Clinker – a vitrified brick
 Ceramic glazed – fire bricks with a decorative glazing

Bricks named for place of origin:

 Chicago common brick - a soft brick made near Chicago, Illinois

with a range of colors, like buff yellow, salmon pink, or deep red
 Cream City brick – a light yellow brick made in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin
 Dutch brick – a hard light coloured brick originally from the
Netherlands.
2
Clay Bricks:
Clay bricks are small, rectangular blocks made of fired clays. Clays that
used for bricks making is vary widely in composition from one place to
another. Clays are composed mainly of silica, alumina, lime, iron,
manganese, sulfur, and phosphates, with different proportions. Bricks are
manufactured by grinding or crushing the clay in mill-sand machine, then
mixing it with water to make it paste. The clay paste is then molded,
textured, dried, and finally fired. Bricks are manufactured with different
colors, such as dark red, purple, brown, gray, pink or dull brown, depending
on the firing temperature of the clay during manufacturing and color
admixtures. The firing temperature for brick manufacturing varies from 900
to 1200 oC. Clay bricks have an average density of 2000 kg/m3.

Bricks are used for different purpose including building, facing and
aesthetics, floor making, and paving:

3
1- Building bricks (common bricks) are used as a structural
material and typically are strong and durable.

2- Facing bricks are used for facing and aesthetics purpose and are
available in different size, colors, and texture.

1- Floor bricks are used on finished floor surfaces and generally

smooth and dense and have high resistance to abrasion.

4
 2- Paving bricks are used as a paving material for roads, sidewalks,
patios, drive ways, and interior floors. Paving bricks available in
different colors such as red, gray, or brown and typically they are
abrasion resistance and could be vitrified.

Advantages of clay bricks:

1- Very durable.
2- Fire resistant.
3- Require very little maintenance.
4- They have moderate insulating properties, which make brick houses
cooler in summer and warmer in winter, compared with houses built
with other construction materials.

5
The process of manufacturing

1. Preparation of clay: after removal of vegetation, then the clay

process. The processing of clay depends on type of bricks to be made,
the ordinary bricks need very little preparation, while for superior
bricks the clay washed and processed before molding it into bricks.
2. Molding of Bricks: may be carry out by hands or by machines. The
process of molding bricks may be by hand molding (soft-mud is
used) this type used for bearing walls, or by machine molding (stiff-
mud is used) also used for bearing walls, roofing, flooring, or by dry-
press processing (molding using max. 10% water and forming bricks
at higher pressure) like wall tiles or decorative works.

6
3- Burning of Bricks: burning of bricks is carried out in temporary
clamps or in permanent kilns. It is then fired slowly to intense (very
high) heat which may take many days.

7
Chemical Changes in Burning of Bricks:

Heating clay up to about 640 oC produce some physical changes only, here
the moisture is driven out and organic matter is burnt out. In this stage the
brick is crumble down like chalk when immersed in water. Then by
increasing the heating of clay up to 700 to 1000 oC, chemical changes take
place by which alumina and silica in the clay fuse together resulting in a
new compound which is strong and stable, here the brick is not crumble
down like clay when immersed in water. The product is different from the
original clay.

If we heat the clay beyond 1300 oC, the above materials get vitrified; the
bricks began to lose their shape. Vitrified tiles are nowadays extensively
used as floor tiles.

8
Dimensions:

There are several shapes and dimensions for bricks changes from country
to another, the normal size of the building bricks is 230x110x70 mm,
allowing for 10 mm mortar joints. Conventional and specially shaped
bricks:

Bull nose Brick with Frog Perforated Brick Hollow Brick

The purpose of providing frog is to form a key for holding the mortar.

Light Weight Clay Bricks:

Light Weight Clay Bricks are used in tall building, to reduce the dead
weight of walls, such us partition walls, this reduce the load on the
foundation. They are available in many sizes. A hollow brick in which the
brick contains hollow with ribs. The weight of this type as one-third the
weight of the solid (ordinary brick). The hollow also reduce the
transmission of heat, sound, and dampness.

9
Sampling:
For testing of bricks selecting 10 bricks from lot size not less than
1000000 bricks, and 5 for each additional 500000 bricks. 10 bricks for
compressive strength, water absorption, efflorescence, dimensional test,
hardness, and soundness.

Test of Bricks:
a.Compressive strength.
b.Water absorption.
c.Efflorescence (soluble salt content).
d.Hardness: a Scratch is made on the surface of the brick with finger nail.
No impression will be left on the surface.
e.Soundness: two bricks are taken, one in each hand, and they are struck
with each other lightly. A clear ring sound should be produced and the
brick should not get break.
f.Dimensional tolerance, these dimensions are to be measured in one or
two bricks of ten each. Allowable within 3% for length and width. 4% for
thickness.

10
Type of clay bricks

11
 References
1. "Interlocking bricks & Compressed stablized earth bricks -
CSEB". Buildup Nepal.
2. "Bricks that interlock".
3. Jump up to:a b W., Beamish, A. Donovan (1990). Village-level
brickmaking. Vieweg. ISBN 3-528-02051-
2. OCLC 472930436.
4. (in French) IFP Orient – Tell Aswad Archived 26 July 2011
at the Wayback Machine. Wikis.ifporient.org. Retrieved 16
November 2012.
5. "Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük". UNESCO World Heritage
Centre. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
6. "Mud-brick Village Survived 7,200 Years in the Jordan
Valley". Haaretz. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
7. Jump up to:a b c Fiala, Jan; Mikolas, Milan; Fiala Junior, Jan;
Krejsova, Katerina (2019). "History and Evolution of Full
Bricks of Other European Countries". IOP Conference
Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 603 (3):
032097. Bibcode:2019MS&E..603c2097F. doi:10.1088/1757
-899x/603/3/032097. S2CID 203996304.
8. Hasson Hnaihen, Kadim (18 December 2019). "The
Appearance of Bricks in Ancient Mesopotamia". Athens
Journal of History. 6 (1): 73–96. doi:10.30958/ajhis.6-1-
4. ISSN 2407-9677. S2CID 214024042.
9. Possehl, Gregory L. (1996)
10. History of brickmaking, Encyclopædia Britannica.
11. Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (2005), "Uncovering the keys
to the Lost Indus Cities", Scientific American, 15 (1): 24–
33, doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0105-
24sp, PMID 12840948

12