TECHNOLOGY

The dawn of the IT era spawned the coinage ‘click and mortar’ but there is no denying the fact that dwellings of any sort have to depend on traditional ‘brick and mortar’ frames. Bricks are an essential part of buildings even if combined with granite or other stones. In vast, multistoried complexes, tonnes of bricks are used in the walls and other structures.


THE NEW TECHNOLOGY

The soil is prepared in batches to maintain moisture content.


The right mixture is fed into the box-type feeder using a front-end loader.


The material is screened by a magnet to remove iron particles and fed to a primary crusher through a conveyor. The lumps and stones are removed and regulated size of soil is fed to the fine crusher. The fine crusher takes care of the final size of raw material. It's then fed to a double shaft mixer.


The mixer homogenises the material and water, if required, can be added at this stage to increase moisture.

The final mixture is fed into a vacuum extruder, which produces a column of clay on to a roller conveyor and compacts the brick.

A flying cut-off slices the column to size before pushing it to the brick wire-cutter. The final brick is cut with wires to actual size and carted by trolleys or conveyors for storage in shade. After a week, the semi-dried bricks are re-stacked for complete drying.

The dried bricks are loaded in firing chambers for baking and unloaded after due process and are ready for market.


  • The increase in production, however, does not necessarily translate into reduced prices. What you do get is lower breakage rates and savings in cement.
  • How many bricks can be made in an eight-hour shift?
  • Normal bricks: 45,000
  • Wire-cut bricks: 72,000
  • What is the manpower needed?
  • Normal bricks: 90 workers
  • Wire-cut bricks: 30 workers
  • What is the difference in height when you stack ten normal and wire-cut bricks
  • Normal bricks:
  • 10 bricks = 21 sq. ft.
  • Wire-cut bricks:
  • 10 bricks = 28 sq. ft.
  • What is the number of breakages per lorry load?
  • Normal bricks per lorry load of 3,000: 150-200
  • Wire-cut bricks per lorry load of 3,000 bricks: 20-30
  • For a normal house of 1,200 sq. ft ground and first floor, what will be the savings on cement
  • Normal bricks = 600 bags
  • Wire-cut bricks = 510 bags
  • Source from:
    http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-propertyplus/not-just-another-brick-in-the-wall/article5926843.ece