Importance of Cement Based Unfired Building Blocks in Construction

Abstract

The need of sustainable and low cost building material is one of the prime concerns for the researchers. This is due to ever increasing demand of conventional building materials that are dependent to natural resources. Conventional clay bricks are one of the important building materials for construction industries. Superior engineering properties of clay bricks makes it most preferable building material for making non-structural elements. Production of conventional bricks is dependent to natural resources like clay, river sand and dirt and exploration of such resources is always harmful for environment. The manufacturing process of conventional bricks is fuel consuming and also emits greenhouse gases in bulk. This research focuses towards promoting cement based unfired building blocks along with the use of conventional clay bricks. Review of researches shows that the use of non-biodegradable abundantly available wastes such as fly ash, brick waste or debris, quarry dust, gypsum etc., in the form of fillers for cement based building blocks, provides the best solution to minimize the load bear by conventional clay bricks.