Brick

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What are they made of?
Brick is a ceramic structural material that, in modern times, is made by pressing clay into blocks and firing them to the requisite hardness in a kiln

• What are they used for?
Brick may be used in construction only in conjunction with mortar, since the unit is too small, too light, and too irregular to be stabilized by weight. As well as being used for house building, the Victorians used enormous quantities of bricks for other purposes, many of which were engineering bricks, e.g. warehouses, factories, mill chimneys, and railway viaducts. •

How many types of brick are there?
Brick masonry units may be solid, hollow, or architectural terra cotta. Types of brick: o Building brick, also called common, hard, or kiln-run brick, is made from ordinary clay or shale and is fired in kilns o Face brick is better quality and has better durability and appearance than building brick o Clinker brick is overburned in the kiln o Pressed brick is made by a dry-press process, rather than by kiln firing o Glazed brick has one surface coated with a white or colored ceramic glazing. o Fire brick is made from a special type of clay o Cored bricks have ten holes—two rows of five holes each-extending through their beds to reduce weight o European brick has strength and durability about equal to U.S. clay brick o Sand-lime brick is made from a lean mixture of slaked lime and fine sand • Describe 2 brick laying techniques o Overlapping (interlocking) the masonry units. Embedding metal ties in connecting joints. o Mortar bond refers to the adhesion of the joint mortar to the masonry units or to the reinforcing steel.

• What are their advantages and disadvantages?
Advantages: as a structural material for its fire and weather resisting qualities and for the ease of production, transportation, and laying Disadvantages: the size of bricks is limited by the need for efficient drying, firing, and handling, but shapes, along with the techniques of bricklaying, have varied widely throughout hidtory.

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Worksheet 2:
a. Comparison and contrast: Brick compares favorably with stone as a structural material for its fire-and -weather resisting qualities and for the ease of production, transportation, and laying b. Description: Regular bricks are bonded either as headers (short side out) or stretchers (long side out).c. Exemplification:: for example, wedge-shaped bricks are sometimes employed in arch construction and bricks with rounded faces in columns d. Cause/Effect: Standard modern types provide a ratio of width to length of slightly less than 1:2 to permit a wide variety of bonding patterns within a consistent module, or standard of measurement e. Chronology: Century on, particularly in northern Europe. It is widely used in the 20th Century, often for nonbearing walls in steel frame constructions.