fairfolio
Saved Projects

Brickwork: The Effect of the Size of Sand Particles in the Strength of a Concrete Brick

CSEF · 2002 Structural Capability & Strength of Materials (Junior Division Only)

Erika Marie C. Go · Montgomery Middle School, San Diego

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to find which size of sand particles would make a concrete brick stronger using silica sand #30 (finer sand), and silica sand #18 (coarser sand. Methods/Materials There are two specific tests that I did. One would be the compression test and the other would be the durability test. In the compression test I placed each brick into the compressor, and compressed the brick until it broke in half. In the durability test I took a ladder and placed it half a yard a way from a rock. I climbed up the ladder (carefully). Once on the second step to the top of the ladder, I dropped the brick. After doing so, I record results, and repeat the same process again. In all 132 bricks were tested and three different brick types were used. Bricks contained silica sand #18, silica sand #30 or both silica sand #18 and #30. Results In the compression test, it turned out that the coarse sand bricks containing the silica sand #18 was stronger than the silica sand #30, the finer sand bricks. In the durability test, the bricks containing the silica sand #30 had more broken pieces then the bricks containing the #18 silica sand. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion the bricks containing the silica sand #30 was the weakest and the bricks containing the silica sand #18 was the strongest. As for the bricks with both the silica sand #18 and #30, it was in between. The silica sand #18 may have been stronger because during the curing process the bricks didn#t dry as quickly as the bricks with the finer sand (#30).

Summary statement

I made concrete bricks using fine sand and coarse sand to see which silica sand size would make a concrete brick stronger.

Help received

Ms. King provided this opportunity and materials needed, Don Phillipe to helped make bricks, Skip for information, San Diego Equipment Rentals INC. rented equipment needed, RCP the wood needed, The Freeform Company for information, Home Depot the silica sand

Competition history

  • CSEF 2002 Structural Capability & Strength of Materials (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1807

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google