Análisis de la resistencia a la compresión de ladrillos prensados interconectables elaborados de barro, cangahua y puzolana, con adiciones de cemento, cumpliendo la norma ecuatoriana de la construcción (NEC 2015)

Abstract

In the first instance, the properties of the materials to be used were determined from the mines located in the province of Cotopaxi, thus verifying the granulometry and the plasticity index of each material, complying with the specifications of ASTM 421-78 and INEN 691 respectively. With this background, the dosage was calculated to perform the mixing and consecutively in order to obtain the best results that contribute reliability and based on the standards NTE INEN 293 and NTE INEN 574 samples are prepared and are tested under compression respectively. In addition, in order to be able to make the brick mix, at least three different percentages of 10%, 15% and 20% of cement should be established for each type of material and three brick samples of each percentage of the mixture (nine samples) Have a more real resistance value. The tests should be performed at the ages of 7, 14 and 28 days, so that there would be 27 samples for each mixture, having a total of 81 samples.

The process of curing the bricks is in a practical way consisting of saturating the units with water totally, 3 times a day for three days and let them dry to the environment in situ. After the necessary days of curing of the bricks, it is proceeded to test them to compression where it is verified that the optimal percentage of cement added for the bricks made with mud and cangahua is of 15%, reaching resistances considerably higher than the minimum established by the NEC of 3MPa (30kg/cm2) for confined masonry walls, in addition to being higher than the minimum of 20kg/cm2 for brickwork. The bricks made with pozzolana did not reach the minimum resistance required for confined masonry walls, but they comply with the minimum compressive strength for handcrafted bricks.