Study on the flexural strength of coal ash brick masonry wall elements

Abstract

In the manufacture of traditional clay bricks, natural clay is used. The mining of clay makes negative impacts on the environment, namely development of wastelands and hastening soil erosion. Moreover conventional clay bricks are costlier. Thermal power plants generate large amount of coal ash. The safe disposal of this coal ash is a great concern. By substituting coal ash in the place of clay in brick manufacturing, soil environment can be protected. As such, the utilization of these ashes in building industry is gaining importance. This is the rationale behind using coal ash bricks in the experiments. Coal ash bricks were manufactured using coal ash (fly ash and pond ash), lime, gypsum and stone dust in an optimized mix ratio. This paper describes an experimental study on masonry wall elements constructed with coal ash bricks. The aim of the work was to study the compressive strength as well as the flexural strength of the wall elements. In this investigation, 81 masonry wall elements were tested. Strip loading was applied parallel to and perpendicular to the bed joint to determine the flexural strength. Similarly vertical loading was applied to find out the compressive strength of the wall elements. Though the mechanical properties of the coal ash brick wall elements were studied componentwise, the flexural and compressive strength of the masonry wall elements are discussed in this paper.