SUSTAINABLE INVESTIGATION ON POND ASH-INDUCED COMPRESSED INTERLOCKING BRICKS

Abstract

Investigating the sustainability of using pond ash in compressed interlocking bricks is a multi-faceted process that requires assessing environmental, economic, and social aspects. India churns out more than 200 million tonnes of untapped coal ash every year. Stone crusher plants and thermal power plants are exhibiting huge amounts of unutilized by-products which have started invading our environment negatively and could soon create hazardous impacts. This paper focuses on investigating a new emerging sustainable brick constituting all these waste substances. Unutilized stone dust from crushers of the Khordha Industrial Area and Ash (Pond ash and Fly ash) were collected from the NALCO Power Plant situated at Angul, Odisha, India. Pond ash Induced Compressed Interlocking Bricks (PAICIB) were fabricated having parent mix with pond ash & fly ash levels of 35% and 40% stone dust by weight, which was fixed after several trial mix experiments. Variation was done with the proportion of lime and cement to the parent mix. Compressive strength tests were conducted on day 7 and 28. The parent mix of 30cmx15cmx10cm PAICIB containing no cement and 10% hydrated lime by weight of parent mix sustained a compressive strength up to 5.5 N/mm2 (failure load of 204KN) and the water absorption was 17% after 28 days. The primary focus of this investigation is to utilize the waste materials for creating an eco-friendly brick that can meet the demand of the current rising population of populated countries like India. This work becomes a part of the “fly ash management and utilization mission” by NGT as the bricks are formed here using the disposed pond ash in rivers reducing water pollution too.