A new clamp method for firing bricks

Abstract

A conventional or standard clamp firing method has long been used by small and medium scale brick industries in Ghana, because the system is easier to build, cheaper to operate, can be constructed close to the supply of cl-ay and fuel to reduce transportation cost, and has a higher brick capacity of between 5.0 x 103 to 1.0 x 105 green bricks than other systems. Despite these advantages, the conventional clamp firing method suffers from excessi-ve heat loss from the top of the clamp due to thermal convection, and the uncontrolled heat loss in the firing has led to higher number of under-burnt bricks. To overcome this operational deficiencies, a new method of firing bricks that uses brick clamp technique that incorporates a clamp wall of 60 cm thickness, a six tier approach of sealing the top of the clamp (by combination of green bricks) has been developed. The new method of sealing the top of the brick clamp greatly reduces heat loss by convection from the top of the clamp and the sides of the clamp wall resulting in the reduction of under-burnt bricks by 6.9 %. (Journal of Applied Science and Technology: 2001 6(1-2): 51-55)