Application of Additional Materials Palm Shell Ash and Laban Tree Ash in Brick Products Using the Taguchi Method

Abstract

UD. Pak Suandi is one of the UDs that produces and sells bricks. Many factors influence the quality of bricks, namely human resources, composition, and processing of raw materials. Brick making sometimes does not match the desired quality, there are often defects/cracks in the bricks. The method used in this research is the Taguchi method, where Taguchi is used to design efficient and effective experiments in identifying factors that influence brick quality, such as brick compressive strength, as well as to determine optimal settings of production parameters with the aim of maximizing brick quality. The results of this research show that the factors that have a significant influence are factors A (Clay) and D (Laban Tree Ash). The high SNR ANOVA value shows this. The optimal concentration settings are 1.40 kg of Clay, 45 ml of Water, 13 grams of Palm Ash and 14 grams of Laban Tree Ash. Where with the composition design, a compressive strength value of 9.73 MPa is obtained. The compressive strength obtained increased by 6.03 Mpa from the company's standard composition of 3.70 Mpa.