DEVELOPMENT OF AMBIENT CURED GEOPOLYMER BRICKS

Geopolymer brick is a substitute for the burnt type clay bricks. The conventional bricks causes serious hazardous effect to the environment due to soil degradation and carbon dioxide emission. In this research work, alternative bricks – geopolymer bricks were produced by combining fly ash and GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag) with river sand. A binder is a combination of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate which is used as an activator. Ambient curing of geopolymer bricks was done and no other energy intensive process was involved in curing the geopolymer bricks. In this study, three combinations of geopolymer bricks were cast by varying the proportions of fly ash and GGBS – (90%+10%), (80%+20+), (75%+25%) and found their compressive strength as 9.50 MPa, 12.84 MPa and 15.93 MPa respectively. Geopolymer brick with 75 % fly ash and 25% GGBS shows higher compressive strength and better resistance to chemicals. The strength of 230 x 105 x 70mm geopolymer brick was compared with 230 x 105 x 70mm fly ash brick and 225 x 110 x 75mm burnt clay brick.