Physical, Mechanical and Chemical Characterization on Ancient Brick Masonry of Monuments, Bagan, Myanmar

Bagan, the Cultural Heritage City of Myanmar, was mainly composed of brick masonry monuments. Some monuments were stone masonry. All of these monuments are vulnerable to both disaster and natural degradation. In order to make proper conservation and repairing work, it is important to know the properties of ancient materials. Therefore, the physical properties and EDX analysis of the ancient bricks from different monuments of 11AD, 12AD, 13 AD and 18 AD were investigated. Due to the limited amount of samples, ancient mortar from monuments of 13 AD, and 18 AD were investigated. It is important to use the similar materials in conservation and repairing work of ancient monuments so that the physical properties and chemical characterization of the new brick from the modern brick mill near Bagan was also performed. Then, the physical properties unit weight, water absorption and mechanical properties compressive strength, flexural strength of ancient bricks were experimented in the laboratory. Energy-dispersive X-ray EDX analytical technique was performed for the chemical characterization of the ancient brick and mortar samples. In addition, the acid digestion test of ancient lime mortar was conducted in order to know the binder to aggregate ratio. From the evaluation of the physical properties results, ancient bricks were in good range of water absorption. The compressive strength of the ancient bricks were various due to the location of the sample, but most of them have high compressive strength. The chemical characterization results showed that the composition of the ancient bricks and modern bricks were similar but not identical. It was found that the bricks have preserved their originality against environmental and atmospheric affect and their mechanical properties showed that they were produced by appropriate technique. Thet Mon San | Kyaw Kyaw | Nyan Myint Kyaw "Physical, Mechanical and Chemical Characterization on Ancient Brick Masonry of Monuments, Bagan, Myanmar" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-1 , December 2018, URL: http://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd19100.pdf http://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/-/19100/physical-mechanical-and-chemical-characterization-on-ancient-brick-masonry-of-monuments-bagan-myanmar/thet-mon-san