Load-bearing brick masonry has been extensively used for building construction in developing and developed work. Strength of brick masonry is influenced by strength and stiffness of bricks, adhesion between brick and mortar, bed-joint thickness, workmanship, etc. Large variations in strength of brick masonry are quite obvious due to a large number of parameters controlling the masonry properties. In India, there is a large variation in the quality of bricks. This is attributed to improper burning, variations in soil used for brick making and crude methods adopted for brick making.
In view of the global sustainable development, it is imperative that supplementary cementing materials be used to replace large proportions of cement in cement mortar in concrete, and the most available supplementary cementing material worldwide, and especially in India, is fly ash, a byproduct of thermal power stations. Fly ash is produced in large volumes by thermal power stations. Thus fly ash, if not utilized presents an environmental waste hazard because of its large volume, as its disposal requires large amounts of land, water and energy. In order to increase considerably the utilization of fly ash that otherwise is being wasted, and to have a significant impact on the production of cement, it is necessary to advocate the use of concrete or cement mortar that incorporates large amounts of fly ash as replacement for cement.
An experimental investigation was undertaken to determine the physical properties of cement mortar and brick masonry when replaced with fly ash and to obtain a relation between cement mortar and brick masonry prism.
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