Prediction and fuzzy synthetic optimization of process parameters in heavy clay brick production

摘要

Many factors influence final clay brick properties, since the raw materials used are highly heterogeneous. Statistical analysis is rarely used, according to literature, but it would improve understanding of the overall system behavior and the quality of products.In this study, analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the most important parameters influencing compressive strength (CS) were the quadratic terms of firing temperature, CaO and SiO_2 content in developed second order polynomial (SOP) models. Water absorption (WA) was mostly influenced by quadratic terms of CaO and SiO_2. The most influential interchange terms in all the models were SiO_2 x CaO, SiO_2 x Na_2O, Fe_2O_3 x Na_2O, CaO x Na_2O and CaO x K_2O. Developed SOP models, which connected the influence of major oxides content and firing temperature on CS and WA, showed the highest r2 values (0.926-0.967) obtained in the literature so far, for these naturally occurring heavy clay raw materials. Developed models were able to predict CS and WA in a wide range of chemical composition and temperature treatment data. The implementation of the SOP model is simple using the set of equations in a spreadsheet.