Engineering:Scoria brick
Scoria brick[lower-alpha 1] is a type of blue-grey brick made from slag, originally manufactured from the waste of the steelworks of Teesside, common across the North-East of England.[3][4] The bricks were also exported around the world and can be found in Canada, West Indies, Netherlands, Belgium, United States, India and South America.[5]
The word Scoria originally comes from Greek, meaning "Excrement", but came to be used by the Romans for a kind of volcanic rock.[5] The bricks were invented by Darlington industrialist Joseph Woodward, in the 1870s, with him registering a patent in 1873 and forming the "Tees Scoriae Company" the same year.[6][1] At its peak the company was taking 30% of the slag from the South-Tees works.[3]
The bricks were produced by pouring the slag cauldrons, coming on trains from the steel works, into moulds made with hinged bottoms and mounted on a revolving platform allowing the moulds to be filled separately. As the bricks solidified they were removed and placed in a beehive oven, where the residual heat annealed the whole of the brick.[7][2] The bricks were found to be extremely durable against water, frost, chemicals and heavy loads, which led to them being used as a road surface.[4] On the other hand, an early trial of the bricks in Liverpool found the bricks to wear unevenly and become slippery in wet conditions.[8]
Notes
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Patent Scoriæ Bricks". Northern Echo: pp. 1. 1 November 1873. https://www.newspapers.com/article/northern-echo-patent-scori-bricks/148423079/.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Scoriæ Bricks". Waterville Telegraph: pp. 1. 9 October 1874. https://www.newspapers.com/article/waterville-telegraph-scori-bricks/148423826/.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Walsh, David (6 March 2022). "Scoria bricks: history at our feet". North East Bylines. https://northeastbylines.co.uk/region/north-east/scoria-bricks-history-at-our-feet/.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lloyd, Chris (20 March 2022). "The almost unbreakable slag bricks which lined the streets of the Tees Valley" (in en). Darlington and Stockton Times. https://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/20001616.almost-unbreakable-slag-bricks-lined-streets-tees-valley/.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lloyd, Chris (14 July 2008). "There's mortar bricks than meets the eye" (in en). https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/3206104.mortar-bricks-meets-eye/.
- ↑ Lewis, Stephen (20 April 2024). "York's back alleys in the spotlight: who designed those distinctive bricks?" (in en). York Press. https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/24263598.yorks-distinctive-back-alley-scoria-bricks-spotlight/.
- ↑ "English Slag Paving Blocks". The Peabody Gazette-Herald: pp. 7. 24 November 1910. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-peabody-gazette-herald-english-slag/148394640/.
- ↑ Boulnois, Henry Percy (1898) (in en). The Municipal and Sanitary Engineer's Handbook. E. & F.N. Spon. p. 59. https://books.google.com/books?id=lkVDAAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
 |  |
