Durability & strength of limestone used in building

Abstract EN

The deterioration of limestone rocks selected from three quarries in Mosul city (Baathra, Baghdad street & AL-Warshan), due to different liquids movement inside the pore network was studied.

The durability was examined using slake-durability apparatus through wetting _ drying cycles.

These cycles induce dissolution, recrystallization and lead to the deterioration of this stone, and finally its effect on the strength of these rocks .

Some engineering properties for rocks were studied too.

The results showed a clear variation in the properties of limestone between three quarries and within each quarry.

The studied Rocks have been classified into two types (weak & strong) according to the properties of these rocks.

The results indicated that the rocks subjected to the durability test causes an increases of weight loss, reached to (7.0-14.0%).

This test causes also a reduction of strength about (15-25%) for these rocks when treated with distilled water after 10 cycles.

In the other hand, differ this range when the specimens rocks were treated with salt solution.

This is attributed to variance amount of salt precipitate inside porous stones, due to the various in porosity values for these rocks.

Also, the wetting/drying cycles leads to increase in weight loss for specimens due to increase of dissolution/ recrystallization of salts, which apply stress on the wall of porous stones and lead to a weight and strength reduction of the rocks.