Carbon Dioxide Inhaling bio Healable Interlocking Compressed Earth Bricks

Abstract

Bricks one the most commonly used construction material employed. This is because of its manufacturing convenience and economy. Having said that, it does have its disadvantages, one of the biggest being its contribution to pollution and low resistance to dynamic loads. This research focused on employing modern techniques to counter the disadvantages and formulate a material that has enhanced strength and eco-friendly. Alongside that, bacteria were utilized for inducing healing property; industrial soil which is rich in bacterial properties was used. For this very purpose a recipe was devised to activate the bacteria in order to produce precipitation when cracks form in the bricks. For the formulation experts in this field were consulted with and various research papers were studied. For the manufacturing of brick, it was found that using high compression effort, with addition of a binding material produces bricks that have the same properties as the kiln produced bricks. This helped in completely bypassing the burning process and producing a brick with zero emission. For the design of the bricks, various literature was consulted in order to come up with a design that has an enhanced resistance to lateral loading. For this very purpose the concept of shear keys was incorporated in the proposed design. This inclusion proved to improve the brick’s resistance to lateral loading. Research begins with the selection of soil from the 12 agro-ecological zones of Pakistan so that we can make use of indigenous bacteria of the soil for healing purpose. Furthermore, all characterization of all the constituent materials taken place followed by recipe optimization and finally the manufacturing of bricks in the hydraulic press machine from the best optimized recipe. The results discussed later in this paper, showed that the proposed interlocking compressed earth bricks performed well in comparison to the conventional bricks. Average 28-day’s compressive strength of proposed interlocking compressed earth bricks was found to be 10 MPa which is comparable to the first class burnt bricks that is 10.3 MPa. It is pertinent to mention that the minimum criteria for load bearing masonry is 5 MPa, which the Proposed Interlocking Compressed Erath Brick comfortably fulfills by the factor of 2 times. Strength to weight ratio of the proposed interlocking compressed earth bricks was found to be 20% more than first class burnt bricks results in more strength at lesser weight.