Assessment of Engineering Properties of Clay Soils as Brick and Tiles Materials in Hamedan, West Of Iran

The clay minerals are a group of fine-grained minerals varieties that are of major significance to the engineer. Clay minerals comprise an essential portion of the soils and therefore yield a strong influence on soil’s behavior. The term clay in the geological literature has been used to pertain either to a size friction or to a group of minerals. The clay minerals consist of fine major groups (kaolinite, halloysite, illite, vermiculite and smectite). In this research, engineering properties of clay soils of Hamedan province, west of Iran have been considered for using as brick production. From an engineering point of view, the study of clay soils in Hamedan is significant for two major reasons: (1) They are an important building material with numerous applications to construction and (2) it was performing with the aims of response to the market request and also job preparing for workless peoples. It should be noted that Lalejin is a city of Hamedan province and it is a famous center of Tiles producer in Iran. The productions of Lalejin are exported to the other countries. In this research, 36 soil samples from different parts of Hamedan province were selected and physical, chemical and mechanical tests have been carried out on the samples. Based on the results, 13 soil samples have passed the tests based on the standards and then, they were selected as suitable soils for brick and tiles production.