Investigating the potential of burnt clay brick as an alternative low-cost material for low volume road construction

Abstract

Roads generally serve a primary function of linking places together there by providing connectivity but smoothness of ride along the road pavement is also important to make road movements comfortable and more worthwhile. With the shortage of paved roads across all parts of the country provided by governments, many private individuals and business entities tend to go out of their way to provide such services to themselves. The common areas of application usually being in small areas and short spans include driveways, car parking area or even a few meters from their facility to the main access road in order to overcome such challenges. However, few alternative measures have been employed to cope with the problem of scarce paved surfaces in Uganda with the most prominent measures being use of gravel earthen roads and a single surface dressed road. This research study aimed to assess the potential of locally made and available materials with emphasis on ordinary burnt clay brick to serve as an alternative material of paving road surfaces in situations of low volume traffic loading. The research also aimed in gauging whether to extent pavements of such bricks could find application in Uganda at an economic rate while still ensuring capability of holding traffic of different weight categories and with potential for durability under the prevailing climatic conditions of hot and wet cycles experienced in most parts of the country. Experiments in the lab and mathematical calculations were done to achieve answers to those questions following guidelines from the ASTM C902 particularly on the desired properties that the brick must achieve. The results from the compressive load failure of the pavements were relatively good with a range of 220KN to 340KN, water absorption of brick found to be around 9% and abrasion resistance of 0.14. The finding of this report point out how the sample pavements made have potential for application and also points out key areas of further research especially to the bricks quality so as the prompt and tackle a larger problem of paving road surfaces in the country.