Mud brick

The word "composites" has a modern ring. But using the high strength of fibres to stiffen and strengthen a cheap matrix material is probably older than the wheel. The Processional Way in ancient Babylon, one of the lesser wonders of the ancient world, was made of bitumen reinforced with plaited straw. Straw and horse hair have been used to reinforce mud bricks (improving their fracture toughness) for at least 5000 years. Paper is a composite so is concrete both were known to the Romans. And almost all natural materials which must bear load - wood, bone, muscle - are composites. 

MRI Acronym for magnetic resonance imaging. mt-DNA Acronym for mitochondrial DNA. mud brick See brick, mud. mud cement See cement, mud. 

What do bamboo stalks, mud bricks, steel-belted radial tires, fiberglass fishing rods, reinforced concrete, and the heat tiles on a space shuttle have in common The answer is that these materials are all composites. A composite is a material consisting of two or more components with overall properties different from and superior to either or any one of the individual components. For example, many pleasure boats today have hulls made of a composite material called reinforced plastic that contains glass, plastic, carbon, or some other type of fiber embedded in plastic. The composite material is stronger, more durable, and less dense than the fibers or plastics of which it is made. 

Straw is used as loose bedding for domestic animals. It is used as stuffing in mattresses and furniture. In construction, it is used to make thatched roofs, and is mixed into mortar or mud bricks to give them strength. The combination of mud and straw has been practiced for thousands of years, in many areas of the world. A mixture of mud or clay and straw is called cob, and the resultant bricks may be of any size. 

Since ancient times, natural fibers have been used to reinforce brittle materials. For example, thousands of years ago, Egyptians began using straw and horsehair to reinforce and improve the properties of mud bricks. In more recent times, large-scale commercial use of asbestos fibers in a cement paste matrix began with the invention of the Hatschek process in 1898. However primarily due to health hazards associated with asbestos fibers, alternate fiber types have been investigated and introduced throughout the 1960 s and 1970 s. 

Clay was commonly used for making pottery in prehistory. Silts are sometimes used in ceramics and are a basic component in building materials such as mud daub, mud bricks, adobe, and fired brick. Sods, soil, and other sediments were used in the construction of earthworks by prehistoric peoples for walls, tombs, and other monuments. For example, the early civilizations of China used rammed earth to build house foundations and enormous city walls. Silt was packed down in wood frames using heavy wooden rammers and layer after layer built up. Parts of the Great Wall of China were built using rammed earth more than 2,000 years ago and remain standing today. 

Although the NCs are as old as nature itself, their importance was realized quite later and its foundations were laid only 25 years back. Therefore, it s worth to outline a brief account of the same. I must point that Nature is a maestro nanotechnologist that interestingly and incredibly has designed few of the most perfect and widely encountered NCs. The wood, shellac, and bone represent the simplest examples of natural NCs [11,14,364]. Intelligently and deliberately, in an attempt to emulate nature, the inspired man quickly learned from its ambiance and started the production of a variety of bulk composites, e.g., straw-reinforced mud bricks, concrete, and fiber-reinforced plastics (FRPs). In parallel, the efforts were also started and intensified to know, learn, and perfect the art of formation... 

B.c.E. Mud bricks Mud-brick buildings appear in desert regions, offering durable shelter. The citadel in Bam, Iran, the largest mud-brick building in the world, was built before 500 b.c.e. and was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 2003. 

Waterstruck Brick. A soft-mud brick made in a damp mould to prevent sticking. 

Multiphase natural materials such as bone, timber or rock have been encountered and used by humans since the beginning of their history on the globe. Composites have also been known for several thousands of years. The first reference to mud bricks reinforced by straw is to be found... 

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