Use of fly ash in production of light-weight building bricks

Abstract

Fly ash is one of the coal combustion products (CCPs) of coal burning power plants and it contains substantial amounts of potentially harmful constituents to the environment. It is known that nearly 600 million tons of fly ash is produced in the world per-annum. In Turkey, the annual production of fly ash is, on average, 13 million tons and only a small amount of this is utilized. This study examines the production of light-weight, high thermal insulating bricks made out of the fly ash and lime. Cylindrical brick samples were produced through steam curing of Seyitömer thermal power plant fly ash and lime mixtures in an autoclave in order to determine the optimum conditions for mechanically sound bricks. Subsequently, at the optimum conditions determined, real-size bricks were produced and subjected to standard tests. The findings of this paper suggest that fly ash/lime bricks can be an alternative product to aerated cellular concrete.