Characterisation of structural concrete containing fired clay brick waste

Researcher: Dr Sivaldo Leite Correia

Supervisor: Professor Bill Lee

Funding: Brazilian Research Agency CAPES

This research focuses on physical, mechanical and microstructural characterisation of structural concrete containing fired clay brick waste as a replacement for cement Portland. His research also used fractional factorial design, response surface methods and numerical optimisation techniques to plan and analyse experiments aiming to reduce the number of runs.

Surface analysis coupled with numerical optimisation revealed that it is possible to produce low cost structural concrete mixtures containing fired clay brick waste as a partial replacement for Portland cement up to 30 wt. % with several levels of aggregate-to-cement ratio and water-to-cement ratio.

SEM backscattered electron imaging and EDX microanalysis on fracture surfaces showed that the ceramic waste takes participates in the hydration reactions consuming calcium hydroxide and forming calcium silicate gel. The waste-containing concretes have tougher and more homogeneous microstructures than those without waste thus increasing the cured mechanical properties of structural concretes.