Application of ceramic waste in brick blocks with enhanced acoustic properties

High environmental noise level is currently affecting an increasing amount of people in urban areas, industrial areas, or places with heavy traffic. Therefore, there is a righteous demand for design of building materials and construction elements with improved acoustic properties that ensure a sufficient protection of people affected by noise. Ceramic brick blocks with a system of incorporated voids, which are widely used in the region of Central Europe, can present a prospective solution in that respect. The well-organized manufacturing process, good mechanical and thermal properties and durability of these ceramic products can be considered as supporting arguments for their utilization. The optimization of acoustic properties of brick blocks can be achieved by using waste bulk fillers originating directly in the brick production. This approach generally brings environmental benefits, together with the economic benefits for the producers. In this study, two waste materials of brick-production origin, namely brick rubble and brick microparticles, were characterized in terms of chemical and mineralogical composition at first, along with the characterization of the brick body itself. Then, they were utilized at different dosages as bulk fillers for modified brick blocks. The acoustic properties of the blocks represented by the sound pressure level were determined in the designed small-sized reverberation chambers. It was observed that the utilization of tested waste fillers led to a 10.6-11.7 dB decrease of the average sound pressure level in the frequency range of 50 Hz-5 kHz while the mass increase of the studied brick blocks was 40-47%. The obtained results indicate a successful design of environmental-friendly brick-based materials with enhanced acoustic insulation ability, which was achieved without any significant additional costs. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.