Björn Schouenborg

Durability of Marble Cladding—A Comprehensive Literature Review

Natural stone has been used for centuries as building material. In historical time it was mainly used as load bearing elements, but within the past 50 years a new processing technique has made it c ...

Physical properties and durability of fresh and impregnated Limestone and Sandstone from central Sweden used for thin stone flooring and cladding

Publisher Summary Rocks differ in physical and chemical properties depending on their geochemistry, grain size, grain shape, and porosity. Physical properties crucial for thin stone flooring and cladding have been investigated on fresh and impregnated Jamtland limestone and Dala sandstone. The tests performed were three-point load bending strength, uniaxial compressive strength, abrasion resistance, water absorption (including density), effective porosity, and air permeability. The physical properties were correlated to a chemical weathering test simulating natural stone material corrosion because of acid rain. The fresh sandstone showed higher bending strength, compressive strength, abrasion resistance, water absorption and porosity, and lower permeability than the fresh limestone. The impregnated limestone showed much higher bending strength than the fresh limestone. Thus, it can be concluded that the impregnated limestone showed improved bending strength and chemical properties compared to the fresh limestone, but impaired water absorption, porosity, and permeability. Fresh and impregnated sandstone did not show any distinct differences in physical and chemical properties. For thin stone flooring and cladding the fresh Dala Sandstone is more suitable than the fresh Jamtland limestone because it is less vulnerable to mechanical stress and less sensitive to acid rain.

Resources for the city: sustainable use of bedrock resources for concrete production with examples from Sweden

Abstract Rock aggregate products are essential for our infrastructure and society as a whole. Rock aggregates are mainly used for road and railroad construction and for the manufacture of asphalt and concrete. High-quality, low-cost, environmentally friendly rock aggregates and recycling of materials are important resources for the development of a sustainable society. The relative amount of crushed bedrock is steadily increasing, as a result of the joint effort by the authorities and industry to save natural gravel. It is important to support this trend by all possible means. One of the primary problems is the fact that the available resources of natural aggregates are diminishing in most of Europe. To protect the natural environment, the use of natural sand and gravel aggregates must be reduced and crushed aggregates, instead, will have to be used in concrete production in the future. The paper focuses on this problem and presents proposals for how to deal with it by co-operative research.

Bending strength properties of untreated and impregnated igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic dimension stones of different thickness

Abstract A production method has been developed that makes it possible to produce dimension stone tiles only 4 mm thick without high amounts of waste material. The tiles are impregnated with a mixture of potassium-based water-glass, water, colloidal silica, and Berol 048 (non-ionic surfactant), using a repeated cycling between vacuum and atmospheric pressure. Mineralogy, fabric, and porosity affect the mechanical properties of rock used as dimension stone in the building industry. Tests for bending strength have been performed on tiles of eight different untreated and impregnated samples of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Samples of three different thicknesses (4, 7 and 10 mm) were used in the tests. The untreated rock samples that had a fine-grained texture, low crack density, high mafic mineral content or a distinct ductile metamorphic texture showed the highest bending strength values, whereas those that had high amounts of carbonate minerals, and high crack or void density exhibited the lowest values. The stone types that gained the most from impregnation, in general, were those with high crack or void density.