Harbor Dredged Sediment as raw material in fired clay brick production: Characterization and properties

The port activities generate significant quantity of Harbor Dredged Sediment (HDS). In Algeria these quantities exceed 65 Mm(3)/year. Thus, significant dredging operations are required to avoid harbourds entry siltation. The main objective of this work is an alternative reuse of these HDS as raw material in the manufacture of clay bricks. Physical, mineralogical, chemical and thermal properties of the HDS define the possible civil engineering applications according to standards. Clay bricks were prepared with different HDS proportions (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 and 100 wt %) and were fired at 850 and 950 degrees C. Physico-chemical properties of the fired bricks were determined and compared to the control bricks (100 wt % clay as raw material). The results indicated that the proportion of the Harvor Dredged Sediment and the firing temperature were the two key factors in determining the quality of the fired bricks in terms of mechanical and thermal properties. Bricks with 20 and 15 wt % of Harvor Dredged Sediments fired at 850 and 950 degrees C showed an increase in mechanical properties of 32.53% and 20.63% respectively. Moreover, thermal conductivities of all samples are low; they are ranged from 0.43 to 0.24 and from 0.46 to 0.21 Wm(-1)K(-1) for the bricks fired at 950 and 850 degrees C respectively. Therefore, the bricks could be considered as insulator materials. This study reveals that Harbor Dredged Sediment could be used in the field of building materials to produce eco-friendly bricks.