Of great interest to structural engineering is the sand lime (calcium silicate) process
for the manufacture of bricks, building blocks, tiles, and slabs. This has a number of
important advantages, including the fact that no skilled labour is required and the products have a much greater resistance to crushing strain than the burnt clay brick, the edges are all mathen1atically straight and even without bulging, warping or twisting, as in the case of ordinary bricks, and a wide range of convenient, sizes and shapes can be made to order without difficulty. Until quite recently the sand lime process has been almost completely neglected in Great Britain, and accordingly therefore considerable interest attaches to the fact that a fine new sand lime brick plant was started some time ago at Littlehampton in Sussex by the Arun Brick Co., Ltd. This is on the latest high pressure principle, with a capacity of 110,000 to 120,000 bricks per week, and a brief description will not be without interest, especially in view of the continued scarcity and high price of burnt clay bricks and the fact that the use of this method is increasing rapidly on the Continent and in the United States and Canada, the total world production of sand lime bricks being now over 2,500,000,000 per annum.
It will be remembered that