Definition of the most commonly used ceramic brick for construction in Ecuador: Type and dimensions

Abstract

In Ecuador, 95.9% of housing is built with the use of masonry. Current construction practice in Ecuador shows that masonry is mainly used as enclosing or partition elements and they are not considered as part of the resistant structural system even though masonry walls can work as an active structural element and their work is defined by their geometry and the mechanical properties of the bricks, mortar and their contact interaction. The aim of this work is to characterise the type and geometry of the most commonly used ceramic brick for construction in Ecuador and the particularities of its production. For this propose, field data were collected in 48.9% of the Ecuadorian territory, where 79.19% of the country's population is concentrated and statistical data processing was performed. The results show that the production of bricks in Ecuador is mainly artisanal and 92% of the factories produce solid bricks. The research showed that there are no scientific works on the geometrical characterisation of bricks in Ecuador. The data analysis shows that there is a regional influence in the average brick dimensions, where bricks produced in the coastal region are 35 × 19 × 7 cm; in the central-northern Andes 28.0 × 11.0 × 9.0 cm; in the southern Andes 25.7 × 13.0 × 7. 5 cm with CVlength = 1.21%, CVwidth = 1.31%, CVheight = 3.07%; and, in the Amazon region 25.1 × 11.8 × 7.2 cm, with CVlength = 0.92%, CVwidth = 1.27 %, CVheight = 2.36%. An important identified fact is that only 4.8% of brick manufacturers in Ecuador comply with the national standard dimensions.