Quality assessment of bricks produced in Chitwan District, central Nepal

Abstract

Based on the physical, mechanical, and mineralogical properties of fire clay bricks from different brick industries of the Chitwan District, the quality of bricks was determined. The specific objective of this study was to assess the characteristics and comparison of bricks produced from different kilns. Both desk study and field study was carried out for this purpose. Parameters such as dimension, hardness, soundness, and impact were studied in the field for twenty brick samples obtained from each brick industry. Water absorption, apparent porosity, bulk density, and compressive strength tests were carried out in the laboratory, encompassing high and low quality of samples. Additionally, seven types of bricks were manually crafted using clay from those industries. For mineralogical analysis, XRD was carried out on seven brick samples each from seven different brick industries. IS standard was followed for various testing. The dimension test results showed that none of the samples meet the standard. Similarly, the laboratory test result showed that the bulk density of each brick sample increased with increasing compressive strength and decreasing water absorption capacity and apparent porosity. XRD analysis has identified mineral phases like quartz, hematite, and berlinite. Thus, this research tries to provide valuable insights into brick quality, strength and potential applications.