DOI: 10.36347/sjet.2020.v08i07.003

Pages: 132-140

Clay bricks are widely used for building construction in Bangladesh. Due to rapid urbanization, use of clay bricks is increasing exponentially which leads to air pollution, as well as huge degradation of topsoil from the agricultural lands. Besides, clay bricks increase dead load of structure as they are heavy. In order to minimize these problems, techniques must be innovated for production of low-cost lightweight and eco-friendly bricks. In this study, an attempt was taken to assess the potentiality of locally available saw dust instead of clay to produce lightweight eco-friendly bricks. Total 16 different ratios of cement, saw dust and sand have been taken to prepare samples of saw dust bricks. Compressive strength, unit weight, water absorption rate, fire sensibility and cost of production per brick were analyzed for each type of bricks and compared. The result shows that the compressive strength of bricks was satisfactory for lower percentage of saw- dust. Unit weight of saw dust bricks were reduced by 2 – 42.8 % than that of clay brick and water absorption rate was very low. There was no significant difference between strength of burnt and the unburnt saw dust bricks. Price of saw dust bricks is not higher than that of clay bricks.