Parametric study of brick manufacturing by replacing clay with landfill waste soil

Rapid urbanisation increased the construction activities' demands for building materials like bricks, causing overexploitation of natural clay. In contrast, generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) increased, whose management has become a critical issue for the local body authority. Soil obtained from degraded MSW can solve the issue of excessive demand for bricks and overexploitation of natural clay in its manufacturing and can prove to be an alternative material for replacing natural clay to produce durable and cost-effective bricks. In order to manufacture fire clay brick by using conventional techniques, this article focuses on substituting natural clay with soil remnants from degraded municipal solid waste. Various criteria were examined on the bricks. The average values for crushing strength (3.85 MPa, 3.21 MPa, 2.52 MPa), water absorption capacity (16.92%, 18.85%, and 22.24%), and loss on heat (1.48%, 1.69%, and 2.18%) were obtained for 10%, 20%, and 30% replacement of degraded MSW soil in natural earth, respectively. The outcome shows that the compressive strength reduces as the proportion of replacement increases as the percentage of water absorption and heat loss increases. However, at 20% replacement, the parametric value is more in line with what the pertinent Indian Standard Code considers to be acceptable values.