International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology

Vol. 29, No.02, (2020), pp. 254-260

EFFECTIVE UNFIRED CLAY BRICKS WITH NATURAL ADDITIVES

1
Nadia Benkhadda , 2Asmae Khaldoun
1,2
School of Science and Engineering, Al Akhawayn University, B.O. Box 104, Ifrane
Morocco

Abstract: The aim of this work is to study and test new compositions of unfired clay bricks with wool
as an additive for safe, sustainable, and eco-friendly natural material for building constructions. The
motivations behind choosing clay as the topic of study are: its abundant existence and the possibility to
enhance its thermal and mechanical properties with the lower costs possible. Besides, the possibility to
add additives and stabilizers instead of drying them using firing methods. Formerly, a research
conducted by our team showed that wool addition increased thermal efficiency and thermal isolation
of the bricks. In addition, one example of the captivating results is that the thermal conductivity of one
sample, with five % wool, was (0.19 W/m.K) . As a succession to previous work done, this work is about
the enhancement of mechanical properties of unfired clay bricks especially the testing for compressive
strength of the bricks, in order to evaluate their mechanical performance.

Keywords: unfired clay bricks; mechanical properties.

1. Introduction

Constructions industry is one of the major components of any economy all around the world. In fact,
the development of countries infrastructures and services implies a direct necessity of providing suitable
buildings and constructions. As a result, the development of industries and economies can be negatively
proportional to the safety of environment. Because of different emissions; due to materials production
that causes pollutions, as well as the risky exploitation of earth resources such as wood. For that reason,
green inventions and renewable energies are being introduced as better alternatives to conventional
ones. Green energies are also known to be less expensive, sustainable, and have no harm on human’s
lives because they do not produce toxins and harmful substances in the production phase. Furthermore,
technologies, sciences, engineering, activists are concerned with the impact of world’s development on
the environment and started conducting projects and researches to achieve ecological solutions. Besides,
engineering field has a major role in the development of the constructions domain and green energies
with all its branches; civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical
engineering. etc. As far as mechanical engineering in concerned, we will start by providing alternatives
to the principle and smaller unit of any building construction; bricks. Clay is a natural material that
contains very fine minerals grains; less than 2 μm, and that exists widely on the planet earth. Clay
materials are used for construction, decoration, plants growth, cosmetics ...etc. The elasticity and
strength of clay based materials are both related to the quantity of water it is containing. In other words,
the phyllosilicates aspect of the clay makes it flexible and easy to model, but at the same time the
existence of other minerals makes the clay hard when dried or fired [1]. The particles of minerals in
clay are organized in a way similar to sheet layers. there are three categories of clay depending on the
ratios and layers.: Kaolinite: Al2 Si2 O5 (OH)4 this type of clay is considered the purest type of clay.
Kaolinite is not significantly affected by water and it does not absorb water this is the reason it is used
for ceramics manufacturing. Montmorillonite: (Na,Ca)0,3 (Al,Mg)2 Si4O10 (OH)2 mostly known for
its important expenditure when contacting water, which make it dangerous for certain construction that
require safety.

ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST

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 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No.02, (2020), pp. 254-260

Illite: it has the same structure as montmorillonite but with a layer of potassium between the two sheets
instead of Mg, Ca, which make it less swilling. This type of clay is the one used in the experiment, it is
the one existing in the region of Ifrane [2]. Obviously, any constructions are based on the usage of the
bricks as units to develop the building process. For that matter, the targeted bricks for this project are
unfired clay bricks because they can afford low costs options and better mechanical and thermal
properties for the region population. Conventional Bricks in general are known to have strong
mechanical properties in contradictory to efficient thermal characteristics. Also, they are known to be
non-ecofriendly during manufacturing, and also more expensive for some people. Therefore, in this
project, I propose a better composition of good quality unfired clay bricks that respects the environment
and considerably cheaper that the conventional fired bricks. Fibrous materials were commonly used
throughout history for textile and many house furniture manufacturing that can be natural or artificial,
vegetal or animal. And sheep wool is one type of fibers that not only concerning textile nowadays but
also started to gain importance in civil engineering domain. Sheep wool is a natural fiber from animal
origins that have many virtues contributing in the reinforcements of construction materials. The
advantages of sheep wool are: Sound and odors insulators, Bacteria’s insulators, Resistant to burning,
Absorb moisture, High thermal and mechanical characteristics, Recyclable, renewable, abundant, and
eco-friendly Sodium alginates are a natural polymers extracted from brown seaweed used mainly in
food industry and medical prosthesis; tooth and bones. the usage of alginates which is a hydrophilic
material helps to provide consistency, and enhance the usage of water within mixtures and repeal
desiccation thanks to its capacity to form gels and a result enhance the materials strength properties[4].
Sheep wool, as a natural polymer used as stabilizer were used by C. Galán-Marín et al. The result
showed that wool fibers inclusion increases the compressive strength of the bricks. Also, the fiber helps
to avoid shrinkage that can occur during the drying process [4]. But according Statuto et al [5]. wool
addition to clay bricks, may be considered the best environmental alternative materials for construction,
but more studies should be conducted to enhance shrinkage properties and/or characteristics [5].

2. Clay bricks experiments

2.1. Preparation of raw materials:
The first step of samples making, was to prepare and filter the raw materials that are going to be used.
The two essential elements are clay illite and wool fibers, and they were brought from Ibn Semim
village. The clay extraction was done in lands from the village from 20 cm deep earth in order to obtain
the finest grain possible. In order to have the finest particles of clay possible as well as eliminating any
unwanted particles that would affect the homogeneity of samples, the clay was filtered and sifted
multiple times and using different scales sifters. The clay is of color red. The wool was treated also to
eliminate any particles that would impact negatively the experiment, and this by spinning wool
manually different times also. The length of wool parts used was about three to five centimeters. As for
the stabilizer; the Alginate was purchased prepared directly before the making of each sample when
needed.

2.2. Preparation of samples

The samples were done the same day consecutively. All the percentages were ready before the start
samples mixing. The mixing of wet clay and wool was not easy for samples containing 1% of wool
which means the mixture were not so flexible. - The alginate powder was mixed with water in
proportion of approximation 1:2 (alginate, water) until getting a homogenous mixture. The potential
mixtures were left for one hour before I started molding. The formation of the bricks was done using a
16 cm length steel mold. And finally the samples were let drying in room temperature for the indicated
periods in table 1. Figure 1. represents a photo of the samples after drying

ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST

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 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No.02, (2020), pp. 254-260

Table 1. Samples characteristics

The compositions of the samples are presented in table 2:

Table 2. Samples’ composition

Figure 1: Bricks drying

3. . Testing and results

The testing of the bricks samples was conducted using the fully automatic compression machine,
capacity 3000 kN,
First, the bricks were tested for flexural strength and this by applying centered load in the surface area
(160*4 cm²). And after this the bricks were submitted to a compressive strength forces on the surface
area (80*4 cm²)

Figure 2 Compressive strength test

Figure 3: Example of flexural strength result

ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST

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 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No.02, (2020), pp. 254-260

Table 3:Results of compressive and flexural strength

The two strengths were plotted in Figure 4; and the result show that the materials behave in the same
way for both tests.

Figure 4: graphs of obtained results

4. . Solidwork software comparison

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is the method used by the software Solidworks in order to perform
difficult analysis on elements and assemblies. It is a numerical method that can solve engineering
problems concerning mechanical and thermal studies. This method studies prismatic parts of the body
using meshing option. In this section, we have conducted two simulations using Solidworks in order to
conduct a comparison between one brick from our experiment and perforated bricks with the same
properties. Moreover, the analysis of Solidworks studied the mechanical reactions of the bricks using
VON mises stress equation:

The brick used for the experiment were sample six. And The determination of the properties of clay
bricks were calculated from the data related to our experiment.

ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST

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 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No.02, (2020), pp. 254-260

Figure 5: Properties plugged in Solidworks

Figure 6: Model of sample six brick

Table 4: Reaction Forces of first simulation

Figure 7: Stress results of the first simulation

Figure 8: Strain results of the first simulation

ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST

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 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No.02, (2020), pp. 254-260

Figure 9: Perforated model plugged in second simulation

Table 5: Reaction forces of second simulation

Figure 9: Stress results for second simulation

Figure 10: Stain results for second simulation

Table 5: Simulation results

5. Results and discussion

Tables 3 shows the results obtained from compressive strength tests. As it shows also that the best
composition in terms of high compression resistance is sample six. This sample is made of Clay,
alginates 19%, and the lowest weight percentage of wool which is 0.25 %.
The data also shows that the addition of alginates strengthens the bricks. Because the two bricks without
alginates were easily broken, whereas the others did support the manual force exerted on them.
The addition of sodium alginates increased the resistance of the material by 47 % . The flexural –
compression strengths curves showed that the bricks reacted in a similar way for both test. In other
words, the bricks kept the same intensity of reaction toward each test. The most damaged areas after
the compressive stress test are the corner edges of the brick. Which means that the resistance is higher
in the inside of the brick more than on its facial surfaces. The same observation as in the first simulation
resultant stress.

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 International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology
Vol. 29, No.02, (2020), pp. 254-260

Tables 5 shows that the perforated bricks have experienced higher stress and strain than full bricks. But
they still experience significantly similar distribution of stress. At the same time, it is noticed that the
extracted part experience less strength.

6. Conclusion
The objective of this study was to determine if the addition of wool fibers to unfired clay brick enhances
the mechanical properties of the material. As already mentioned before, it was proved that the thermal
characteristics are improved in the clay bricks by adding Sheep wool to the mixture. More specifically,
the thermal conductivity showed that success of wool fibers to make the unfired clay bricks a good
material for insolation and housing envelopment for thermal efficiency. Based on the literature review
I have done, I have preferred to work on unfired clay bricks with sheep wool and Sodium alginate as a
stabilizer. And the experimental part was conducted on different bricks in terms of compositions,
dimensions, and drying time. As an answer to my problematic, the wool fibers does increase the
mechanical properties of the unfired clay bricks. And the alginate stabilizer reinforced the bricks in
term of resistance to compression more than wool alone by. Besides, the drying time and dimensions
have also a major role in the bricks performance. The bricks with higher density and surface area
showed less strength in comparison to the bricks with lower density and higher surface area.

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