MANUFACTURING OF BRICKS

Phases of manufacturing
1. Mining and storage of raw materials
2. Preparing raw materials
3. Forming the brick
4. Drying
5. Firing and cooling
6. Storage finished products

 MINING &
STORAGE
Surface
clays, shales &
some fire clays are mined
in open pits with power
equipment.
Then, the clay are
transported to plant
storage area.
Normally, the storage area
are use to facilitate
blending of the clays.
Blending produces more
uniform raw materials,
helps control colour.
Allows raw material
control for manufacturing
a certain brick body.

PREPARING RAW MATERIALS

To break up large clay lumps & stones, the material is
processed through size reduction machines before
mixing the raw material.

 FORMING THE BRICKS

Tempering the first step in the forming process, produces a homogenous, plastic
clay mass
Usually this is achieved by adding water to the clay in a pug mill.
There are 3 principal processes for forming bricks:
1.Stiff mud process
- A brickmaking process in which a stiff mixture of water & clay is extruded in a
continuous column.
2.Soft-mud process
- This process is particularly suitable for clays containing too much water to be
extruded by the stiff-mud process.
3.Dry press process
- This process is particularly suited to clays of very low plasticity.

 DRYING
Wet brick from molding or cutting machines contain 7 to
30 percent moisture, depending upon the forming
method.
Before firing process, most of this water evaporated in
dryer chambers at temp.

 FIRING
Bricks are fired between 10 & 40 hours, depending upon
kiln type & other vaariables.
There are several types of kiln used by manufactures.

 COOLING
After the temperature has peaked & is maintained for
prescribed time, the cooling process begins.
Cooling time rarely exceeds 10 hours for tunnel kilns
& from 5 to 24 hours in periodic kilns.
This is important because the rate of cooling has a
direct effect on colour.

 DE-HACKING
De-hacking is the process unloading a kiln or kiln car
after the bricks have cooled, a job is always perform by
robot.

Storage and packaging

PACKAGING

INVENTORY