Paper Title
Clay-PFA Eco-Bricks: Enhancing the Engineering Properties with Sustainable Blended Binders
Abstract
Due to the increasing of public awareness for sustainable building construction, today there is an increasing need to develop building materials that are fit for purpose based on sustainability values in terms of the economy and environmental concern. The most efficient way for the construction industry to approach sustainability is to reuse waste materials and by-products from other industrial activities as target material and/or as binders. In this research Clay Soil was combined with Pulverised Fly Ash (PFA) as target materials were stabilised with Lime, Portland Cement (PC) and blended binders incorporating Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS) – (Lime:GGBS and PC:GGBS). There are technological, economic as well as environmental advantages and potential of utilising PFA,GGBS an industrial by-product from the coal and steel industry, in the development of sustainable clay-PFA building materials. Results based on the pilot industrial commercial trials from this research illustrated that all the key parameters of compressive strength, durability and thermal properties were within the acceptable engineering standards for masonry units. When using blended binders, it further enhancing the engineering properties of the bricks. From the environmental and sustainability analysis results, the unfired Clay-PFA brick has shown energy-efficiency and suggests a remarkable economical alternative to firing building materials.
Index Terms— Eco-Bricks; Clay; PFA; strength; durability; sustainable