Abstract
In this study, an experimental research was dedicated to investigate the properties of clay brick treated by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). Two methods of treatment were conducted. The first contained treating clay brick by submerging the specimens in 1%, 2% and 3% of PVA solution, whereas the second involved coating the brick specimens with 6% PVA (i.e. a high viscous solution). The treated specimens were allowed to dry under ambient temperature in the laboratory before being tested. Standard tests employed for brick specimens were applied. Regarding the specimens treated using the submerging method, results showed that there was a significant contribution of PVA to the compressive strength, total water absorption and efflorescence tests, in which the specimens reached the best performance when PVA was increased to 3%. However, the brick specimens coated by PVA showed a slight increase in the compressive strength, but a noticeable decrease in the water absorption and efflorescence. Â
Highlights
Clay brick is the oldest and most widely used construction material that has steadily gained popularity since its inception
Munir et al [6] proved that incorporating clay brick with various ratios of waste marble sludge resulted in an increased apparent porosity and water absorption of the material
It can be seen that the immersion of the brick specimens by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymeric solution obviously improved the compressive strength where the 3 wt. % PVA solution diluted in water indicated the highest value with about 22% improvement (Table 1)
Summary
Clay brick is the oldest and most widely used construction material that has steadily gained popularity since its inception. Munir et al [6] proved that incorporating clay brick with various ratios of waste marble sludge resulted in an increased apparent porosity and water absorption of the material It resulted in generating of irregular shaped open pores in the structural material, which in turn resulted in improved thermal insulating properties. A judicious choice to tackle or minimize the adverse influence of the above shortcomings could be achieved by the exploitation of mineral admixtures [7,8] and/or polymers [9,10] The former, can assist in modifications of the material microstructure, it has to be added in relatively large amounts in order to be effective. Based on the findings of the study, the optimal of PVA concentration was determined
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