Brick

Bricks are one of the oldest types of building blocks. They are an ideal building
material because they are relatively cheap to make, very durable, and require little
maintenance. Bricks are usually made of kiln-baked mixtures of clay. In ancient
times, bricks were made of mud and dried in the sun; modern bricks are made
from concrete, sand and lime, and glass. The physical and chemical characteristics
of the raw materials used to make bricks, along with the temperature at which they
are baked, determine the color and hardness of the finished product. Bricks are
made in standard sizes, are usually twice as long as they are wide and, since most
bricklaying is done manually, are made small enough to fit in the hand. Bricklayers
use a trowel to cover each brick with mortar—a mixture of cement, sand,
and water. The mortar hardens when dry and keeps the bricks in place. Bricks are
arranged in various patterns, called bonds, for strength.

Brick - History
Archaeologists have found bricks in the Middle East dating 10,000 years ago.
Scientists suggest that these bricks were made from mud left after the rivers in that
area flooded. The bricks were molded by hand and left in the sun to dry. Structures
were built by layering the bricks using mud and tar as mortar. The ancient city of
Ur (modern Iraq) was built with mud bricks around 4,000 B.C. the Israelites made
bricks for their Egyptian rulers. These bricks were made of clay dug from
the earth, mixed with straw, and baked in crude ovens or burned in a fire. Many
ancient structures made of bricks, such as the Great Wall of China and remnants of
Roman buildings, are still standing today. The Romans further developed kiln-
baked bricks and spread the art of brick making throughout Europe.

The oldest type of brick in the Western Hemisphere is the adobe brick. Adobe
bricks are made from adobe soil, comprised of clay, quartz, and other minerals, and
baked in the sun. Adobe soil can be found in dry regions throughout the world, but
most notably in Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. The
Pyramid of the Sun was built of adobe bricks by the Aztecs in the fifteenth century
and is still standing. In North America, bricks were used as early as the
seventeenth century. Bricks were used extensively for building new factories and
homes during the Industrial Revolution. Until the nineteenth century, raw materials
for bricks were mined and mixed, and bricks were formed, by manual labor. The
first brick making machines were steam powered, and the bricks were fired
with wood or coal as fuel. Modern brickmaking equipment is powered bygas
and electricity. Some manufacturers still produce bricks by hand, but the majority
is machine made.

Brick - Types of Brick

Some bricks are made for specific purposes and are made of certain raw materials,
formed in a particular shape, or with added special textures or glazes. Common
brick is the everyday building brick. They are not made of special materials, and
do not have special marks, color, or texture. Common brick is typically red and
sometimes used as a "backup" brick, depending on the quality. Face brick is often
applied on top of common backup brick. Face brick can be obtained in a variety of
colors, has a uniform surface appearance and color, is more durable, and is graded
according to its ability to withstand freezing temperatures and moisture. Refractory
bricks are made from fireclays—clays with a high alumina or silica content or
nonclay minerals such as bauxite, zircon, silicon carbide, or dolomite. Fireclays
are heat resistant and are used in various types of furnaces, kilns, and
fireplaces. Calcium silicate bricks are often made in areas where clay is not readily
available. Glazed bricks are made primarily for walls in buildings such as dairies,
hospitals, and laboratories, where easy cleaning is necessary.

Bricks may be made from clay, shale, soft slate, calcium silicate, concrete, or
shaped from quarried stone.
Clay is the most common material, with modern clay bricks formed in one of three
processes - soft mud, dry press, or extruded.

Manufacturing of Bricks
Mud bricks

The soft mud method is the most common, as it is the most economical. It starts
with the raw clay, preferably in a mix with 25-30% sand to reduce shrinkage. The
clay is first ground and mixed with water to the desired consistency. The clay is
then pressed into steel moulds with a hydraulic press. The shaped clay is then fired
("burned") at 900-1000 °C to achieve strength.
In modern brickworks, this is usually done in a continuously fired tunnel kiln, in
which the bricks move slowly through the kiln on conveyors, rails, or kiln cars to
achieve consistency for all bricks. The bricks often have added lime, ash, and
organic matter to speed the burning.

Bull's Trench Kilns

In India, brick making is typically a manual process. The most common type of
brick kiln in use there are Bull's Trench Kiln (BTK), based on a design developed
by British engineer W. Bull in the late nineteenth century.
An oval or circular trench, 6–9 meters wide, 2-2.5 meters deep, and 100–150
meters in circumference, is dug. A tall exhaust chimney is constructed in the
centre. Half or more of the trench is filled with "green" (unfired) bricks which are
stacked in an open lattice pattern to allow airflow. The lattice is capped with a
roofing layer of finished brick.
In operation, new green bricks, along with roofing bricks, are stacked at one end of
the brick pile; cooled finished bricks are removed from the other end for transport.
In the middle the brick workers create a firing zone by dropping fuel (coal, [wood],
oil, debris, etc.) through access holes in the roof above the trench.
The advantage of the BTK design is a much greater energy efficiency compared
with clamp or scove kilns. Sheet metal or boards are used to route the airflow
through the brick lattice so that fresh air flows first through the recently burned
bricks, heating the air, then through the active burning zone. The air continues
through the green brick zone (pre-heating and drying them), and finally out the
chimney where the rising gases create suction which pulls air through the system.
The reuse of heated air yields savings in fuel cost.
As with the rail process above, the BTK process is continuous. A half dozen
laborers working around the clock can fire approximately 15,000-25,000 bricks a
day. Unlike the rail process, in the BTK process the bricks do not move. Instead,
the locations at which the bricks are loaded, fired, and unloaded gradually rotate
through the trench.

Dry pressed bricks

The dry press method is similar to mud brick but starts with a much thicker clay
mix, so it forms more accurate, sharper-edged bricks. The greater force in pressing
and the longer burn make this method more expensive.

Extruded bricks

With extruded bricks the clay is mixed with 10-15% water (stiff extrusion) or 20-
25% water (soft extrusion). This is forced through a die to create a long cable of
material of the proper width and depth. This is then cut into bricks of the desired
length by a wall of wires. Most structural bricks are made by this method, as hard
dense bricks result, and holes or other perforations can be produced by the die. The
introduction of holes reduces the needed volume of clay through the whole
process, with the consequent reduction in cost. The bricks are lighter and easier to
handle, and have thermal properties different from solid bricks. The cut
bricks are hardened by drying for between 20 and 40 hours at 50-150 °C before
being fired. The heat for drying is often waste heat from the kiln.

Calcium silicate bricks

The raw materials for calcium silicate bricks include lime mixed with quartz,
crushed flint or crushed siliceous rock together with mineralcolourants. The
materials are mixed and left until the lime is completely hydrated, the mixture is
then pressed into moulds and cured in anautoclave for two or three hours to speed
the chemical hardening. The finished bricks are very accurate and uniform,
although the sharp arrisesneed careful handling to avoid damage to brick (and
brick-layer). The bricks can be made in a variety of colours, white is common but
pastel shades can be achieved.
It is very common in Sweden, especially in houses built or renovated in the '70s.
Here it is referred to as "Mexitegel" (en: Mexi[can] Bricks).
In India these are known as Fly ash bricks, manufactured using the Falg process.

Strength And Quality Of Brick

182. An architect should, if possible, examine the brick to be used in a building
before they are laid in the wall, and they should meet the following requirements:

1. They should be sound, free from cracks or flaws, and from stones and lumps of
any kind, especially pieces of lime.

2. The bricks must be uniform in size, with sharp angles and edges, and the
surfaces true and square to each other; this insures neat work.

3. Good building brick should be quite hard and well burned. A simple, and
generally satisfactory test forcommon brick is to strike two of them together, or to
strike one with the edge of a mason's trowel; if the brick gives a ringing sound it is
generally sufficiently strong for any ordinary work. A dull sound shows the brick
is soft or shaky.

4. The quantity of water absorbed is also important. A good brick should not
absorb more than one-tenth its weight in water. A good test is to weigh the brick
first, then immerse it in water for twenty-four hours, and weigh it again. From the
increase in weight the percentage of water it has absorbed may be found. Very soft
underburned brick often absorb from 25 to 35 per cent. of water. Weak, light-red
brick, often used in filling the interior of walls, will absorb about 20 to 25 per
cent., while the very best brick may absorb not more than 5 per cent., and should, if
possible, be used for outside walls and foundation wallsand piers.

5. Brick that are suitable for piers and the foundations of heavy buildings should
not break under a crushing load of less than 4,000 pounds per square inch.
6. The transverse strength of a brick is quite as important as the crushing strength.
A good brick, 8 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 2 1/2 inches thick, should not
break under a center load of less than 1,600 pounds, the brick lying flat, supported
at each end only, and having a clear span of 6 inches, and a bearing at each end of
1 inch. A first-class brick will carry 2,250 pounds in the center and not break. Tests
have been made with brick that carried 9,700 pounds before breaking.

USE OF BRICK

Bricks are used for building and pavement. In the USA, brick pavement was found
incapable of withstanding heavy traffic, but it is coming back into use as a method
of traffic calming or as a decorative surface in pedestrian precincts. For example,
in the early 1900s, most of the streets in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan were
paved with brick. Today, there are only about 20 blocks of brick paved streets
remaining (totalling less than 0.5 percent of all the streets in the city limits).
Bricks are also used in the metallurgy and glass industries for lining furnaces. They
have various uses, especially refractory bricks such
as silica, magnesia, chamotte and neutral (chromomagnesite)refractory bricks. This
type of brick must have good thermal shock resistance, refractoriness under load,
high melting point, and satisfactory porosity. There is a large refractory brick
industry, especially in the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States.
In the United Kingdom, bricks have been used in construction for centuries. Until
recently, almost all houses were built almost entirely from bricks. Although many
houses in the UK are now built using a mixture of concrete blocks and other
materials, many houses are skinned with a layer of bricks on the outside for
aesthetic appeal.
In the UK a redbrick university is one founded and built in the Victorian era, often
as a technical college. The term is used as differentiation from older, more classics-
oriented universities.
Brick Made Buildings
Shebeli Tower
Shebeli Tower is a historical tower in Damavand, in Tehran Province of Iran.
Standing approximately 33 ft tall (10 m), the structure is a roofed octagon tomb
of Sheikh Shebeli, a Sufi mystic.

The Chilehaus
The Chilehaus (Chile House) is a ten-story office building in Hamburg, Germany,
a prime example of brick architecture of the 1920s
The Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and
considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in
New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America's Favorite
Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.[ Standing at 319 metres
(1,047 ft), it was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed
by the Empire State Building in 1931. After the destruction of the World Trade
Center, it was again the second-tallest building in New York City until December
2007, when the spire was raised on the 365.8-metre (1,200 ft) Bank of America
Tower, pushing the Chrysler Building into third position.
The Alhambra
The Alhambra (Arabic: ‫مَراء‬ َ ْ ‫ال‬, Al-Ḥamrā' , literally "the red one"), the complete
ْ ‫ح‬
form of which was Calat Alhambra (‫مَراُء‬ َ ْ ‫ة ٱل‬
ْ ‫ح‬ ُ َ‫قل ْع‬
َ ْ ‫ال‬, Al-Qal'at al-Ḥamrā' , "the
red fortress"), is a palace and fortress complex constructed during the mid 14th
century by the Moorishrulers of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus, occupying
the top of the hill of the Assabica on the southeastern border of the city
of Granada, now in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain.
The Great Mosque of Samarra
The Great Mosque of Samarra is a 9th century mosque which is located in
the Iraqi city of Samarra. The mosque was commissioned in 848 and completed in
851 by the Abbasidcaliph Al-Mutawakkil who reigned (in Samarra) from 847 until
861.
The Great Mosque of Samarra was at one time the largest mosque in the world;
itsminaret, the Malwiya Tower, is a vast spiralling cone (snail shaped) 52 meters
high and 33 meters wide with a spiral ramp.
The mosque had 17 aisles, and its walls were panelled with mosaics of dark blue
glass. It was part of an extension of Samarra eastwards.
On April 1, 2005, the top of the Malwiya minaret was damaged by a bomb.
Insurgents reportedly attacked the tower because U.S. troops had been using it as a
lookout position. The blast removed pieces of brick from the top of the minaret
along its spiral ramp.
The art and architecture of the mosque was influential; stucco carvings within the
mosque in floral and geometric designs represent early Islamic decoration.
Additionally, the mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, Egypt was based on the Samarra
mosque in many regard.

The Frauenkirche
The Frauenkirche was constructed from red brick in the lateGothic style within
only 20 years. The building is designed very plainly, without rich Gothic
ornaments.
The Late Gothic brick building with round chapel wreath is 109 metres (358 ft)
long, 40 metres (130 ft) wide, and 37 metres (121 ft) high. Contrary to a
widespread legend that says the two towers with their characteristic hood are
exactly one meter different in height, they are almost equal: the north tower is
98.57 metres (323.4 ft), the south tower, on the other hand, is only 98.45 metres
(323.0 ft), 12 centimetres (4.7 in) less. The original design called for pointed spires
to top the towers, much like Cologne Cathedral, but those were never built because
of lack of money. Instead, the two domes were built during the Renaissance, and
are mismatched stylistically with the rest of the building. But this way they have
become a distinctive landmark of Munich