Assessment of the properties of bricks made from stone dust and molten plastic for building and pedestrian pavement

Abstract

The importance of bricks and the need to conserve the environment has led to the use of different types of waste material to replace either cement, clay or sand in the production of bricks. This study has looked into the use of molten plastic to replace Cement in sandcrete bricks. Molten plastic was mixed with stone dust at ratio 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4 by weight. Each sample was designated as P1, P2, P3 and P4 respectively. The brick samples were subjected to mechanical and water absorption tests. An investigation was conducted on the bricks microstructures. Results showed that sample P1 is good for building, facial bricks, pedestrian and light traffic pavement under moderate weathering conditions according to ASTM C67, while sample P2 is okay for building bricks only under non-severe weathering condition. The remaining two bricks samples did not perform well under any conditions. The microstructural analysis revealed the effects of micro-voids sizes on the properties of the bricks