Reinforced Brick Flooring

Reinforced brickwork is a classical type of construction in that the compressive strength of bricks is utilized to bear a compressive stresses and steel bars are used to bear the tensile stresses in a slab. Instead, the usual cement concrete is replaced through the bricks. Therefore, since the size of a brick is limited, continuity in the slab is acquired through filling the joints between the bricks through cement mortar. The reinforcing bars are embedded in the gap among the bricks that is filled with cement mortar. Such kind of construction is quite appropriate and cheap for little span floor slabs carrying comparatively lighter loads. Figure 8(a) shows typical sections of reinforced brick slab.

The depth of reinforced brick slab is governed through the thickness of the bricks available. Modular bricks are 10 cm thick (nominal). Therefore thickness of slab might be kept as 10 cm or 20 cm. If 15 cm thickness is needed from design point of view, 5 cm thick tiles are used on the 10 cm thick bricks to make a total thickness of 15 cm (Figure 8(b)). The joint among the two layers of tile and brick is filled along with cement mortar. Before use, the bricks should be thoroughly soaked within water. The reinforcing bars put in the joints should not come in contact along with bricks.

While two layers of bricks are used, vertical joints within the bricks should be broken (staggered) so which slab does not shear along the joint. The bricks near the edge should rest half on the bearing wall so in which vertical joint above the edge of the wall is prevented. First class bricks should be used for such a work. Cement mortar used to fill the joints etc. should be of 1: 3 ratios, along with proper water-cement ratio to make the mortar workable. The width of the joint between adjacent bricks is commonly remaining equal to 2 cm. The compressive strength of reinforced brickwork is sometimes increased by providing wider gap (say about 4 cm) between the bricks, and giving 2.5 to 5 cm thick layer of cement concrete on the top of the bricks, as shown in Figure (c).

                                        Figure: Reinforced Brick Slab