Preparation of artificial ornamental stone from Iraqi raw materials

الملخص EN

ABSTRACT Artificial ornamental stone is actually a composite material, prepared by mixing polymeric materials with various stones such as sand, crushed dolomite and ground gypsum.

This study aims to evaluate local geological raw materials and determine their properties and mineral contents as fillers with polymeric materials.

Like the commercial industrial practices, such products contribute to reducing environmental problems compared to other building materials that need to be burned when preparing.

In the present work, the raw materials used are local quartz sand, dolomite, and gypsum which are mixed with unsaturated polystyrene in different proportions, and formed by casting.

The molds are treated at 90 °C for one hour to obtain a good cohesion between the granules of fillers and the resin.

The results are variable depending on the type of filling.

Each material used required an appropriate mixing ratio of polymer based on the grain size of the filling materials and their properties.

The appropriate proportions of polymer for dolomite, sand and gypsum samples are 25%, 20% and 30%, respectively.

Generally, all raw materials used are considered successful for structure clay non-load-bearing tiles according to the requirement of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) No.C56-71