DEVELOPMENT OF BIO INSPIRED INTERLOCKING COMPRESSED EARTH BRICKS

Abstract

Bricks are one of the most commonly used construction materials 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. After initiating the laboratory testing, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic due to which the country went into a state of lockdown. This left laboratory testing stage incomplete and so the project team regrouped and with consultation with the project supervisor, scope of the project was altered, and numerical modelling of the proposed bricks was included. Numerical modelling was performed on ABAQUS Software, employing micro modelling. The results, discussed later in this paper, showed that the proposed bricks performed well in comparison to the conventional bricks. Average Compressive Strengths of the Proposed Brick was found to be 7.9 MPa which is comparable to Conventional Brick, having 8MPa. It is pertinent to mention that the minimum criteria for load bearing masonry is 5 MPa, which the Proposed Brick comfortably fulfills. Water absorption value in the proposed brick was found to be lower than that of conventional brick, I.e. 15% against 14% for conventional bricks. Thermal Conductivity achieved was also better in the proposed brick, i.e. 0.5 W/m-K against 0.72 W/m-K of conventional bricks. Force-displacement curves from numerical models proved these bricks can resist more lateral loads with far less displacements.