Abstract
There has been a steady but continuous decline in the use of clay brickwork in the United Kingdom over the past 100 years due to preferences being given to alternative materials and changes in construction processes. . The significant reduction in brick use started with the decline in use of clay bricks as a material for structural brickwork notably in civil engineering structures and as an inner leaf material for cavity walls when it was largely replaced by concrete blocks and aircrete blocks. This project addresses new markets for clay brickwork and specifically the development of in-situ thin joint clay brickwork techniques used in the UK. Prefabricated masonry is then considered and three prefabrication processes developed and evaluated. Manual bricklaying of prefabricated cavity and single skin walls is described as is a robotic manufacturing technique which can facilitate single leaf and cavity walls with openings and with return corner details. A new flat- bed masonry fabrication technique is discussed and developed along with a simple test procedure to ensure continued evaluation of manufactured masonry. A number of case studies are documented with details of the processes, building structure types and the eventual outcome from each project. Both the flat bed prefabrication method and the test are simple, economical and require low capital expenditure and it is anticipated that these processes may provide successful alternatives to the various systems which have been developed over the years but have not been widely received both worldwide and particularly in the UK.