Building Bricks Research Articles

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Topologically optimized cast glass: a new design approach for loadbearing monolithic glass components of reduced annealing time

Up to now, fabricating cast glass components of substantial mass and/or thickness involves a lengthy and perplex annealing process. This has limited the use of this glass manufacturing method in the built environment to simple objects up to the size of regular building bricks, which can be annealed within a few hours. For the first time, structural topological optimization (TO) is investigated as an approach to design monolithic loadbearing cast-glass elements of substantial mass and dimensions, with significantly reduced annealing times. The research is two-fold. First, a numerical exploration is performed. The potential of reducing mass while maintaining satisfactory stiffness of a structural component is done through a case-study, in which a cast-glass grid shell node is designed and optimised. To achieve this, several design criteria in respect to glass as a material, casting as the manufacturing process and TO as a design method, are formulated and applied in the optimisation. It is concluded that a TO approach fully suited for three-dimensional glass design is as of yet not available. For this research, strain- or compliance based TO is selected for the optimization of the three-dimensional, cast glass grid shell node; in our case, we consider that a strain based TO allows for a better exploration of the thickness reduction, which, in turn, has a major influence on the annealing time of cast glass. In comparison, in a stress-based optimization, the considerably lower tensile strength of glass would become the main restrain, leaving underutilized the higher compressive strength. Furthermore, it is determined that a single, unchanging and dominant load-case is most suited for TO optimisation. Using ANSYS Workbench, mass reductions of up to 69% compared to an initial, unoptimized geometry are achieved, reducing annealing times by an estimated 90%. Following this, the feasibility of manufacturing the resulting complex-shaped glass components is investigated though physical prototypes. Two manufacturing techniques are explored: lost-wax casting using 3D-printed wax geometries, and kiln-casting using 3D-printed disposable sand moulds. Several glass prototypes were successfully cast and annealed. From this, several conclusions are drawn regarding the applicability and limitations of TO for cast glass components and the potential of alternative manufacturing methods for making such complex-shaped glass components.

Green waste recycling of peanuts highly contaminated with aflatoxins in clay brick manufacturing

BackgroundThe safe disposal of green waste is necessary for a clean environment, with the safe disposal of waste contaminated with aflatoxins being of particular importance. This work presents a novel route for utilizing contaminated grains in the production of clay bricks. In this work, the contaminated peanut (P) with aflatoxins (AFs) is divided into two categories: PA is the contaminated peanut kernel (without the outer shell), and PB is contaminated whole peanut grain (with the outer shell). Both of ground PA and PB were used to replace the clay in fired building bricks. The raw materials were characterized using X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermo-gravimetric analyses (TGA). The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated by measuring the effect of the replacement percentage and firing temperature on the properties of the produced building bricks.ResultsThe optimization of the process parameters was performed using central composite design as a tool in the response surface methodology. The ANOVA analysis of the predicted quadratic model elucidated significant models’ terms and adequate precision that emphasizes the applicability of the model to navigate the design space. The results revealed that the optimum conditions are 6% clay replacement and 725 °C firing temperature, resulting in a compressive strength of 109.85 kg cm−2 for clay bricks with PA and 126.33 kg cm−2 for clay bricks with PB.ConclusionsThe objective of clay replacement by the contaminated peanut is not to improve the clay brick properties but to perform safe disposal of the accumulated contaminated peanut without deviating from the standards. The design of experiment using response surface method enables studying the effect of several factors on the clay brick properties simultaneously. Subsequently, this approach elucidates a sustainable route for accumulated contaminated green peanut waste disposal as the other alternatives have realized risks.

TECHNOLOGY FOR OBTAINING A BUILDING BRICKWITH THE USE OF WASTE POLYMERSAND RUBBER-TECHNICAL PRODUCTS

The last decades of human life were marked by a sharp increase in various technological processes in the economy and everyday life. This also affected the construction industry. In accordance with this, construction is one of the priorities of the national economy and meets the basic needs of the population. In work the technology of reception of a building brick with use of a waste of polymers and rubber products is considered. Polymer bricks were obtained for processing household waste. The following properties of polymer bricks were studied: short-term strength, moisture absorption, water resistance property, heat conductivity, sound insulation. It is proved that after the addition of polymers and rubber products to the brick, the performance indicators of the brick improved.

Production and characterization of natural clay-free green building brick materials using water treatment sludge and oak wood ash

Production and characterization of natural clay-free green building brick materials using water treatment sludge and oak wood ash

Spent Coffee Grounds as Building Material for Non-Load-Bearing Structures.

The gradual development of government policies for ecological transition in the modern construction sector leads researchers to explore new alternative and low environmental impact materials with a particular focus on bio-sourced materials. In this perspective, the mechanical, thermal insulation, and the sound absorption performances of a spent coffee grounds/potato starch bio-based composite were analyzed for potential application in buildings. Based on thermal conductivity and diffusivity tests, the coffee grounds waste biocomposite was characterized as an insulating material comparable with conventional thermal insulation materials of plant origin. Acoustical tests revealed absorption coefficients in the same range as other conventional materials used in building acoustical comfort. This bio-sourced material presented a sufficient compressive mechanical behavior for non-load-bearing structures and a sufficient mechanical capacity to be shaped into building bricks. Mechanical, thermal, and acoustic performances depend on the moisture environment. The groundwork was laid for an initial reflection on how this composite would behave in two opposite climates: the continental climate of Reims in France and the tropical climate of Belém in Brazil.

End-to-end learning of evolutionary models to find coding regions in genome alignments.

The comparison of genomes using models of molecular evolution is a powerful approach for finding, or toward understanding, functional elements. In particular, comparative genomics is a fundamental building brick in annotating ever larger sets of alignable genomes completely, accurately and consistently. We here present our new program ClaMSA that classifies multiple sequence alignments using a phylogenetic model. It uses a novel continuous-time Markov chain machine learning layer, named CTMC, whose parameters are learned end-to-end and together with (recurrent) neural networks for a learning task. We trained ClaMSA discriminatively to classify aligned codon sequences that are candidates of coding regions into coding or non-coding and obtained four times fewer false positives for this task on vertebrate and fly alignments than existing methods at the same true positive rate. ClaMSA and the CTMC layer are general tools that could be used for other machine learning tasks on tree-related sequence data. Freely from https://github.com/Gaius-Augustus/clamsa. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Peculiarities of glass ceramics formation from red clay-cullet-waste activated sludge-hematite mixtures

In the work, an analysis of the phase formation process proceeding in a quaternary red clay-low-melting cullet-iron oxide (Fe2O3)-WAS (waste activated sludge) system in treatment at 1000oC in air has been performed. It has been established that, in sintering of the mixtures, porous ceramics consisting of a glass phase alloyed with iron ions with inclusions of cristobalite, iron-containing silicates of complex composition, ?-Fe2O3, and an insignificant amount of Fe3O4 forms. The porous glass ceramics meets the compressive strength requirements imposed on building bricks.

Detection of Reinforced Concrete Blocks Using Two-Port Microwave CSRR Sensor

In this paper, the design, fabrication and testing of a two-port transmission line-based microwave sensor for the detection of various structural concrete bricks is presented. The microwave sensor is based on the complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs). First, three dimensional small-scale concrete building bricks are modeled in CST microwave studio along with the design of the microwave CSRR sensor. Classical controlled concrete blocks along with concrete mixed with wood are also studied. The detection capability is then evaluated both numerically and experimentally. Good agreement between numerical and measured results are achieved. Based on the obtained results, the microwave CSRR sensor was sensitive enough to detect various concrete/reinforced concrete blocks with achieved sensitivity of maximum resonance shift of 350 MHz for concrete blocks, while a shift of 150 MHz was obtained for the case of reinforced concrete blocks. From the findings of this research study, the developed microwave CSRR sensor is a good candidate for pre-screening of structural buildings and classification of reinforced concrete samples in a controlled laboratory environment.

Novel Green Building Brick Composites Developed with Eco-Friendly Materials

Novel Green Building Brick Composites Developed with Eco-Friendly Materials

Repurposing Plastic Wastes in Non-conventional Engineered Wood Building Bricks for Constructional Application – A Mechanical Characterization using Experimental and Statistical Analys

Repurposing Plastic Wastes in Non-conventional Engineered Wood Building Bricks for Constructional Application – A Mechanical Characterization using Experimental and Statistical Analys

Advanced Adaptive Spatial Augmented Reality utilizing Dynamic in-situ Projection in Industrial Site Assembly

An Adaptive Spatial Augmented Reality system with dynamic in-situ projection of work instructions and information guidance already shows benefits in the field of industrial site assembly of aircraft components. Furthermore, the user-adaptive gesture control offers advantages for a human-centered and natural interaction directly in the assembly process. This paper presents results of enhancing dynamic in-situ projection, information guidance and user-adaptive gesture interaction in an advanced assembly process of large-sized toy building bricks. For this purpose, the dynamic projection system displays the location of the bricks in the material provision area as well as the accurate mounting position and dynamically guides the operator through the assembly process. Furthermore, the optimized gesture interaction with YOLO and an optimized synthetic dataset creation process for site assembly, indicate strong intentions for user-adaptive interaction with the projection system. An evaluation in the TU Wien pilot factory demonstrates benefits in terms of time savings in locating parts, usability and cognitive workload.

Leachability of Heavy Metals from Autoclaved Fly Ash-Lime Building Bricks

The fly ash as a byproduct of coal-fired power plants constitutes vital ecological problems. In Turkey, approximately 15 million tons ofashes are generated via the combustion of 40 million tons of lignite yearly. Worldwide, a number of investigation and applications wereundertaken to utilize fly ash in order to overcome the environmental problems. One of the application area of fly ashes is the production of building bricks. Characterization of fly ash samples from Seyitomer and Yatagan coal-firing power plants were conducted inthis study. TCLP 1311, ASTM3987-85 and EN 12457-2 leaching tests on the cylindrical fly ash/lime brick (FA/LB) samples which wereproduced from Seyitömer and Yatagan thermal power plant fly ash-lime mixtures were performed to determine the leachability ofsome chosen trace elements. The results show that the release of all trace elements was lower than the hazardous material limit valuesof waste acceptance. Thus, non- fired fly ash bricks are an advantageous way to solving environmental effect of disposal of fly ashes.

Suitability Assessment of Construction and Demolition Waste as a Highway Material

For Being a developing country urbanization is growing rapidly in Bangladesh and there has been a significant increase in the construction of roads. But due to lack of financial aid many of the roads are still unsealed. However, not only the utilization of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) in flexible pavement will be helpful for the reduction of road construction costs but also it will help to reduce environmental pollution which may be caused by disposing CDW in open area. The objective of this research is to utilize the CDW in base and sub base layers in the flexible pavement design to reduce the cost of road construction and environmental pollution. Proceeding by collecting CDW like brick from demolished building and conventional brick from kiln, a no of standard test conducted in laboratory namely Aggregate Impact Value, Crushing Value, Specific Gravity, Water Absorption and Loss Angeles Abrasion Test for three times. After analyzing the test results, we found that the average Aggregate Impact Value for CDW and Conventional Aggregate (CA) are respectively 29.52% and 23.87%, Aggregate Crushing value for CDW and CA are respectively 28.10% and 22.88%, Los Angeles Abrasion value for CDW and CA are respectively 31.47% and 28.52%, specific gravity value for CDW and CA both is 1.75, water absorption for CDW and CA are respectively 7.62% and 12.23%. After analyzing the test results and comparing with the standard value, we figure out that the CDW are useful for using base and sub base layers in the flexible pavement.

Efficient Bulk Defect Suppression Strategy in FASnI3 Perovskite for Photovoltaic Performance Enhancement

AbstractDespite Sn‐based perovskite solar cells (PSCs) prevailing over lead‐free candidates, the Sn vacancies (VSn) and Sn4+ defects seriously deteriorate device photovoltaic performance. The presently reported methods can only effectively achieve surface defect passivation, and it is of great challenge and fundamental importance to develop efficient strategy to deal with the intrinsic defects located inside the lattice. Herein, a novel bulk defect suppression strategy is proposed, introducing large organic piperazine cations (PZ2+) into the lattice of 3D FASnI3 perovskite to restrain the generation of bulk defects. The incorporation of PZ2+ results in forming a FA1−2yPZ2ySn1−yI3 (0 ≤ y ≤ 0.25) structure with no reduction in dimensionality, which guarantees the continuity of [SnI6] octahedral structures with unobstructed carrier transport and reduced charged defects. The potent interactions between PZ2+ and [SnI6] structures enhance VSn formation energy and effectively suppress bulk defect formation. As a result, the FASnI3+1%PZ films exhibit optimized crystalline quality, decreased background carrier density, lower p‐type self‐doping, and reduced trap state density. Benefiting from the above advantages, the FASnI3+1%PZ device achieves an optimal PCE of 9.15% and unencapsulated device maintains over 95% of initial PCE after aging for 1000 h in N2 golvebox. The bulk defect suppression strategy provides fire‐new building bricks toward high‐performance Sn‐based PSCs.

Analysis of Nano-Silicon Dioxide Modified Waste Building Brick Materials in the Application of Adsorption and Removal of Water Pollutants

This study is to investigate the effect of nano-silicon dioxide (SiO2) modified waste building bricks (WBBs) in adsorbing pollutants in water. The Stober method is adopted to complete the preparation of nano-SiO2. Afterwards, the prepared SiO2 is modified with 3-(methacryloyl chloride) propyltrimethoxysilane (MPS). The modified SiO2 (MPS-SiO2) is loaded on the surface of the construction waste bricks to analyze the characterization of the modified construction waste bricks and their adsorption to nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in wastewater. Both the energy spectrum and infrared spectrum of the MPS-SiO2 show the characteristic peaks of MPS. It shows that the modification of nano-SiO2 by MPS is feasible. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of MPS-SiO2 WBBs has not changed much from before the treatment, but the infrared spectrum of MPS-SiO2 shows the characteristic peak of MPS. Such results indicate that MPS-SiO2 can be successfully loaded to the surface of waste building bricks. Temperature, initial concentration, and pH of waste liquid have a great influence on the adsorption of MPS-SiO2 WBBs to P and N wastewater. MPS-SiO2 building waste bricks are most suitable for treating phosphorus wastewater with an initial pH of 2 and an initial concentration of 50~150 mg/L. The treatment effect of ammonia nitrogen wastewater with a concentration greater than 50 mg/L is not good. The treatment effect of ammonia nitrogen wastewater with an initial pH of 4~7 is better. The waste building brick materials modified by nano-SiO2 have a good prospect in the treatment of water pollution, and are worthy of further in-depth exploration.

A review of novel methods and current developments of phase change materials in the building walls for cooling applications

The prime concern of the scientific community nowadays is high energy consumption and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. One of the major energy consumers is building sector, where nearly 30% of total energy is disbursed, with high priority to space cooling and ventilation. In addition, the contribution of buildings for GHG emission is also high. Various researchers in the recent past have suggested and successfully implemented different cooling methods to address this crisis. This paper evaluates various models suggested by researchers for building cooling with phase change materials (PCMs). Since the exposed area of high-rise buildings is more, there is a great chance for energy savings. The PCM impregnated building wall and building brick models have the promising potential for energy saving, by providing thermal comfort and conceding the peak temperature. This article emphasises the wall and building brick applications of PCM for building cooling, that illuminate the associated difficulties and possible alternatives. From the study, it was found that the PCM walls can be constructed with different techniques like adding PCM as a separate layer or inserting PCM in brick holes. In some cases, the PCM is added as a constituent in the cement mortar for plastering or for making concrete. These techniques will help to reduce the building cooling load, peak heat flux, and shift the peak temperature to off working hours. In cooling applications, it is preferred to keep the PCM layer near the heat source for better performance. The performance of a PCM wall highly depends upon the type of PCM used, location of PCM in the wall, type of application, and on the phase transition temperature of PCM.

Innovative Technologies for the Production of Ceramic Building Materials from Waste of Natural (Exogenous) Processes

The main material for the modern construction business is cement/concrete, the production of which is associated with high energy and material costs and, most importantly, high CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Based on this, the development of technologies for new energy-efficient building materials - substitutes for Portland cement is of great importance. One of the ways to solve this problem could be the wider use of ceramic building materials, the production of which requires less energy and is not associated with high CO2 emissions compared to the production of Portland cement. The subject of this article is the development of innovative technologies for the production of ceramic building materials in Georgia (ordinary building bricks and clinker bricks) by using unconventional raw material - clay shale aluvium which is a waste of natural (exogenous) processes. As the main component of the ceramic mass, we used clay shale aluvium from the Duruji river bed near the town of Kvareli, which made it possible to reduce the firing temperature and improve the quality of the finished product. X-ray phase, petrographic and electronic microscopic studies have shown that ceramic products, both building and clinker bricks, made with the use of Kvareli shale, under the same firing conditions, have been obtained with a denser structure ensuring higher physical and mechanical features as compared to clay Metekhi, which is currently used by the brick factory in Georgia. The use of shale accumulated in the region of Kvareli in various areas of the economy (including production of ceramic building materials) will make it possible to clear the adjacent territory from risky deposits of natural alluvium, which threatens to flood the city and provide companies engaged in production of ceramic building materials with low-cost and environmentally friendly raw materials.

Fabrication of Low-Temperature Sintering Building Bricks Using Drilling Cutting and Geopolymeric Technology.

This study explores the practicability of using drill cutting (DC) as raw material to fabricate building bricks through the high-temperature sintering method and low-temperature geopolymeric setting (LTGS) process. Drilling mud can be recycled and reutilized after certain treatment procedures and is considered as a non-hazardous waste. However, the treatment process is time-consuming and not cost-effective. For the sintering method, low porosity and high mechanical strength bricks can be sintered at temperatures above 800 °C and meet CNS standards. For the low-temperature geopolymeric setting process, sodium silicate was selected as an activating agent for geopolymerization of drill cutting. Several process parameters, such as Si2O/Na2O modulus of alkali solution and low-temperature geopolymeric setting temperature, were investigated. The physical and mechanical properties of the fabricated brick were evaluated. According to the test results, 72.4 MPa compressive strength building bricks with low porosity (13.9%) and water absorption (6.0%) can be fabricated with 2.0 Si2O/Na2O alkali solution at 500 °C. The drill cutting brick fabricated not only meets the CNS 382.R2002 common brick standard, but also solve its disposal problem.

Mixed sp2-sp3 Nanocarbon Materials: A Status Quo Review.

Carbon nanomaterials with a different character of the chemical bond—graphene (sp2) and nanodiamond (sp3)—are the building bricks for a new class of all-carbon hybrid nanomaterials, where the two different carbon networks with sp3 and sp2 hybridization coexist, interacting and even transforming into one another. The extraordinary physiochemical properties defined by the unique electronic band structure of the two border nanoallotropes ensure the immense application potential and versatility of these all-carbon nanomaterials. The review summarizes the status quo of sp2 – sp3 nanomaterials, including graphene/graphene-oxide—nanodiamond composites and hybrids, graphene/graphene-oxide—diamond heterojunctions, and other sp2–sp3 nanocarbon hybrids for sensing, electronic, and other emergent applications. Novel sp2–sp3 transitional nanocarbon phases and architectures are also discussed. Furthermore, the two-way sp2 (graphene) to sp3 (diamond surface and nanodiamond) transformations at the nanoscale, essential for innovative fabrication, and stability and chemical reactivity assessment are discussed based on extensive theoretical, computational and experimental studies.