Construction Machine Blog

After I have finished my last blog, I realized that I might have made a mistake, which would probably put some readers into confusion. The mistake is that I have not given a basic introduction of the bricks. I do apologize here for my fault and share my information about bricks with all of you showing interest.

I think, all of us have some common sense of bricks. They’re simple to use, inexpensive, attractive to look at, and they can last hundreds of years. And of course, as I have mentioned before, they are main building material for the Great Wall of China. However, if you want to be an expert on this topic, knowing this is still not enough. There is something more you should know about them. Let’s take a closer look at them!

 

What is brick?

Stone is a natural building material you can use the moment you dig it out of the ground. Bricks, on the other hand, have to be made from clay before we can build with them. Clay is a naturally occurring ceramic based on the chemical elements aluminum, silicon, and oxygen. If you’ve ever dug wet, clay-rich soil, you know it’s very thick and sticky. To turn this gooey material into hard, durable bricks, we have to cut and mold it into rectangular chunks which are then fired in an industrial oven called a kiln at temperatures of over 1000°C (1800°F).

stone building

brick building

 

The advantages of bricks

Compared with some other building materials, bricks have some following advantages. First, clay is available throughout the world in large quantities and brick making is a fairly simple process, so bricks themselves are relatively inexpensive. Building bricks are much lighter and easier to work with than stone and sometimes last longer. They’re attractive to look at, weatherproof, and—like other ceramics—very good at resisting high temperatures. By using different clays, it’s possible to make bricks in different colors. Traditional red bricks take their color from iron in their clay, while yellow bricks have a greater quantity of lime or chalk.

bricks of different shapes

bricks in different colors

 

 

Types of bricks

According to their application, bricks can be divided into two kinds: ordinary building bricks and refractory bricks:

Building bricks are made to a standard size (typically 20-22cm long, 9-11cm wide, and 5-7cm high (approx 8-8.5in long, 3.5-4.5in wide, and 2-3in high), with the dimensions varying slightly from country to country). They’re made from higher grades of clay and finished on at least one side (face) so they look attractive on houses and walls.

Refractory bricks are made for high-temperature use for lining such things as industrial smokestacks (chimneys) and household fireplaces, so they tend to be made more crudely and less attractively finished. Unlike ordinary bricks, they’re typically made using such raw minerals as fireclay, alumina (aluminum oxide), silica (silicon oxide), and dolomite (calcium magnesium carbonate)

Building bricks

Refractory bricks

 

The process of brick making

The places or factories in which bricks are made are called “ceramic tiles” or “brick kiln. They are typically built in places where there are large supplies of clay available nearby.

The first stage in making bricks involves digging the clay from pits in the ground. Raw clay isn’t immediately usable as it is: rocks and other impurities have to be removed first by screening and filtering.

The clay is then mixed with water and kneaded in machines that resemble giant traditional food mixers or modern bread making machines. The now-soft clay mixture is squeezed out through a rectangular-shaped hole (imagine toothpaste squeezing from a tube with a square-shaped hole) in a process called extrusion. Wires cut the lengths of clay into separate bricks, which are then stacked up on trucks and moved into drying rooms where the moisture they contain is allowed to evaporate over a period of about a day or so.

Once that process is complete, the trucks are moved again into giant kilns (the ovens that turn the soft clay into hardened bricks ready for building), some of which are over 100m (330ft) long! The firing time and temperature vary according to the type of clay being used and the type of end-product required.

Although much more efficient, this process—digging the clay, shaping it, and heating it to harden it—is essentially the way bricks have been made for at least 6000 years. Traditionally, bricks were shaped by hand and left to fire in the sun. Sun-dried adobe bricks are still made this way.

The whole process of brick making

Brick machine

Thank you for finishing reading my blog. Congraduations to you for becoming a expert on bricks.

Tags: advantages, brick making, types

This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 5:27 am and is filed under bricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.