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Sewage sludge (SS) management has been regarded as a serious environmental and health issue around the globe, especially in developing countries like India, mainly due to the lack of proper regulatory criteria, and appropriate engineering infrastructures. The present research work demonstrates the utilization of Fly Ash (FA) in varying percentages (with an interval of 10%) with SS as brick for sustainable building material with special emphasis on dimensional Effect. The impact of dimensional effect is measured using compressive strength behaviour for a stress rate of 14 MPa/min of two different sizes of brick i.e. D1 and D2 of sizes 7 × 7x7 cm3 and 2 × 2x2 cm3, respectively. Owing to the sintering effect, the maximum strengths of 4.02 MPa and 7.6 MPa are noticed for a composition of 60% SS+40% FA for D1 and 40% SS + 60% FA for D2, respectively. According to the Indian Standards (IS) 13757: 1993, an exhibited strength of more than 3.5 MPa by any brick composition enables it to be used as a common building brick. In general, due to the formation of triangular wedges, the D2 bricks exhibited better strength for any mixing ratio of FA and SS. The added benefit in our study was lower thermal conductivity (0.48 Wm−1K−1) of the prepared fired brick implying its better insulation property. Our study uniquely highlights the possible utilization of FA for stabilizing SS for sustainable substitution of natural clay fired brick. Future study may further investigate the compositional effect of FA on the thermal and thermodynamic attributes of the bricks. Image 1 • Pioneer study on bricks that visualizes dimensional effect along with mechanical properties. • 40–60% fly ash with sewage sludge satisfies Indian codal provisions as construction material. • Thermal conductivity of synthesized brick is lower than conventional fired clay bricks. • Dimensional effect significantly influences the compressive strength behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Mechanical strength and pore properties are checked with over burnt brick aggregate. • Nonlinear relation is obtained among permeability, porosity and compressive strength. • For single sized aggregates, permeability lie in the range of 1.2–2.1 cm/s. • Prediction equations are made for porosity, permeability and compressive strength. In the search of alternate construction materials, over burnt brick aggregate has enrolled its appellation as a low cost sustainable alternate material. In the north-eastern part of India, especially in Tripura, the shortage of natural stone aggregate has opened up the field for over burnt brick aggregate to be used as an alternate pavement material. This study mainly focuses on the characterization of pervious concrete mixes produced with over burnt brick as coarse aggregate. Pervious concrete, in the recent era, has been considered as the emergent technology due to its prominence as an environmentally and hydrologically sustainable pavement system. In this paper, a series of test samples are produced using various design variables and then the mechanical strength and the pore properties of porous mixes are evaluated. Aggregate gradation, water-cement ratio and the percentage of fine aggregate are chosen as the design variables and their effect in the compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, porosity, permeability, etc. are estimated. The statistical analysis is also carried out using the experimental test data and prediction equations are developed to estimate the porosity, permeability and the compressive strength of the pervious concrete mixes. The predicted equations fitted well and showed a very good agreement with the calculated results. These equations can be directly used for the selection of the mix proportion and the designing of pervious concrete mixes made with over burnt brick aggregate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]