Sir we have finally designed the mould which can be used for the production of the soil cement

bricks. The mechanical arrangement which we discussed last time with you will not be economically feasible as we are not going to produce bricks in very large quantities. We had proposed to fashion a system in which blocks could be produced very quickly by filling the mould with the mixture and then applying pressure. We had thought of making a metallic mould preferably from cast iron. A preview of the mould is given below:-

Since the mould would be extremely heavy, uneconomical and difficult to fabricate we have come up with a different solution.

We intend to build the mould in parts and then join them together using fasteners. We have chosen wood as a suitable material. Aluminum sheets may also be used as inside lining to improve the performance of the mould.

BRICK SIZE: - 220*110*90

We used SolidWorks 2011 for designing the various parts of the mould. Mahogany was used as the material property. Below is the long side of the mould:-

Cut

The cuts made are to facilitate the connection of the short sides with the long side. A protuberance is provided at the bottom which in turn gets fitted with the bottom part.

Below is the 1st Short side:-

As it can be seen easily that the short side acts as the male part and the cut in the long side acts as the female part.

Below is the 2nd Short Side:-

The view of the 2nd short side in this picture is 1800 off about the vertical axis. Below is the Mated Figure of the short and the long sides:-

1st Short side

2nd short side

Long side 2 nos.

It can be clearly seen that both the short sides have been properly fitted into the cuts provided in the longer sides. All dimensions have been provided.

Below is the Bottom Part of the mould:-

Bottom part has a central strip shaped plateau to account for the shape of the brick. The two narrow grooves provided either side serve as the female part for joining the longer sides to the base.

Below is a combined figure of the base and the sides:-

For better understanding Sectional views along the X as well as the Y-axis are provided below.

Along X-Axis:-

Along Y-Axis:-

It can be clearly seen that the grooves are completely filled by the male parts in the long sides and hence provide fixity to the assembly.

Below is the Top part of the assembly:-

The above figure shows the top part of the mould on its back. Having designed all the parts of the mould we proceed to the final assembly:-

Though this figure shows the top part fully inserted into the assembly, in real scenario the top part will in fact be a bit out. The soil-cement mixture will have to be tested to find out the exact shrinkage of the mixture upon application of pressure.

In design and calculation of the above mould trial shrinkage of mixture is taken as 5 mm.

Below are the sectional views of the fully mated assembly:-

Finally the long sides are fastened together using 4 metal rods with threads on the outer fringes for nuts and washers. Large size washer will be used to provide better gripping.

These rods will not only provide fixity but will also serve as handles for lifting the mould.

Below is the Final Trimetric view of the mould:-

Compression testing machine may be used as the source of pressure.