Bulk utilisation of copper mine tailings in production of bricks

Investigations were curried out to develop stabilized cement copper tailing bricks using a waste generated by primary copper producing industry. The study reveals that good quality of stabilized bricks can be produced from a mixture of copper mine tailings and cement by adopting compressive moulding technique at a moulding pressure of 15 N/mm 2 . Bricks of compressive strength of 2.9 N/mm 2 - 6.45 N/mm 2 were obtained after 28 days curing in a water pond at ambient temperature by varying cement content between 8 % and 15 %. The water absorption was in the range of 17.97% - 18.85 %. Bricks of 3.5 N/mm2 and 5 N/mm 2 , crushing strength can be produced with cement content 9.59 % and 12.60 %. respectively, which will meet the requirement of IS: 1077-1992.