ABSTRACT
The Brazilian clay block industry increases every year in both, amount of fabricated products and production technology. The brickyards have experimentally produced structural blocks with thinner shell and webs thickness to study their structural behaviour in order to help future discussions about the specifications of the standard code. The prism test results were statistically evaluated using factorial analysis and have shown that both the mortar and the block wall thickness significantly influence the prism compressive strength. The clay blocks were characterized according to their geometrical properties, net area, water absorption and compressive strength. The blocks compressive strength results as well as their net areas were treated statistically and it was found that the results are statistically different. The chapter presents experimental results of compression tests with different courses clay block prisms of same geometry but different web and flanges thicknesses.
