Variability in the Compressive Strength of Fly Ash Bricks

Abstract

The disposal of fly ash is an environmental challenge globally, and the only viable solution for its mass disposal is its use in the construction industry, especially for brick production. Hence, the substantial growth in masonry structures using fly ash bricks in India where coal-based power plants dominate the power sector has been recently seen. However, the safety and strength assessment of structures made of fly ash bricks often require the modeling of the uncertainty of its properties. The present study investigated the variability of compressive strength of fly ash bricks and proposes the most appropriate model for the statistical distribution. Twenty-six probability distributions were considered to conduct the three goodness-of-fit tests, namely, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kolmogorov-Smirnov-Lilliefors, and Anderson-Darling tests. The analysis concluded that the Johnson SB distribution is the best suited of the distributions considered for similar cases to model the variability in the compressive strength of fly ash bricks. In addition, the microstructures of these bricks were examined to investigate the cause of such variations.