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The stones of Salamanca
Published in Dolores Pereira, Natural Stone and World Heritage, 2019
Stones for monuments and historic buildings were cut from large, quarried blocks that were sawn to the correct size and prepared for emplacement. The market for dimension stone has grown exponentially through the centuries, parallel to the improvement in construction techniques and stone-cutting technology. At present, buildings are constructed mainly of brick and concrete. Natural stones are used only as facings to cover façades, with slabs ranging from 2.5–5 cm thickness. The ability to economically cut large blocks into thin slabs and tiles to cover façades has made it feasible to use stone in commercial buildings and private homes. Even so, the stone should still meet specific requirements to be applied for specific uses.
Mining Methods Vary Widely
Published in Karlheinz Spitz, John Trudinger, Mining and the Environment, 2019
Karlheinz Spitz, John Trudinger
Dimension stone refers to rock that is cut to a certain shape and size, commonly used as building material: limestone, granite, dolomite, sandstone, marble, and slate (Case 6.2). Processing the stone begins with sawing the excavated rock into slabs using a rotating diamond or circular saw. Water is used to cool the saws and to remove particles. After the stone has been cut to the desired size, it is finished using natural and synthetic abrasives. Natural abrasives include iron oxide, silica, garnet, and diamond dust, themselves usually products of mining. Synthetic abrasives include silicon carbide, boron carbide, and fused alumina (USEPA 1995).
Sandstone for building blocks
Published in P.J.N. Pells, Engineering Geology of the Sydney Region, 2018
Dimension Stone. Dimension stone is natural stone, possessing certain commercial qualities, which is quarried in blocks and finished to specific sizes or dimensions- The stone must be quarried and worked with skill and care. The characteristics typically required of a high quality dimension stone are uniformity of colour and texture, soundness, and availability in large blocks free from joints, deleterious bedding features, and other imperfections.
Characterisation of the tensile performance of bonding agents for the restoration of heritage dimension stone from southeast Australia
Published in Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2023
Dimension stone has been used as a building material for thousands of years, owing to its strength and durability, and has been a primary building material for structures associated with status, power and religion (e.g. pyramids of Giza, Machu Pichu, Moai on Easter Island, Stone Henge in the UK) (Patil et al., 2021). ‘Modern’ historical buildings constructed during the Australian Gold Rush and Federation Eras remain significant architectural pieces in the cities and towns around southeastern Australia (Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia). In each of these locations, historical government buildings and monuments are typified by their stone masonry. These buildings were constructed from local quarried dimension stone and remain a benchmark for cultural and societal development as presented in Figure 1 (Berrocal-Olave et al., 2021).
Effects of discontinuities on the rock block geometry of dimension stone quarries: a case study
Published in Geomechanics and Geoengineering, 2023
Hamid Ranjkesh Adarmanabadi, Arezou Rasti, Navid Mojtabai, Morteza Tabaei, Mehrdad Razavi
Using dimension stones goes back to thousand years ago. Recently due to population growth and increasing construction activities, the demand for dimension stones is increasing. Investment in the dimension stone mining market has always been associated with a high risk for the investors. Therefore, the study of the profitability of dimension stone quarries is essential due to the environmental impacts and economic development (Carvalho et al. 2018). Natural discontinuities significantly affect the block’s geometry, size, and as a result, the profitability of dimension stone quarries (Elkarmoty et al. 2020). One of the most critical factors in quarrying is extracting an appropriate intact block size from the rock mass. The ability to produce good quality blocks considering the shape and size at optimum cost is vital for investors and mine’s economic feasibility (Careddu et al. 2019). The geometry of rock blocks is an essential parameter in mining engineering and quarrying. The geometry of the rock blocks is one of the factors that controls the stability of surface and underground excavations and the design of the support systems (Goodman and Shi 1985, Goodman 1995, Jing and Stephansson 2007). In blasting operations, the pre-blast block size shape controls the degree of fragmentation (Hamdi and du Mouza 2005, Hamdi et al. 2008). All these factors influence the economic feasibility of mining operations (Sousa 2007, Turanboy 2010, Alade et al. 2012, Saliu and Idowu 2014). Rock discontinuities network including joints, faults, cleavage and bedding planes control the rock mass mechanical behaviour (Shang et al. 2018). Rock block’s geometry depends on the joint set orientation, the number of joints sets, and the spacing of joints. Therefore, determining fracture patterns and discontinuity networks of rock mass play a crucial role in the possibility of obtaining appropriate rock block size in quarries operations (Sonmez et al. 2004, Alade et al. 2012, Careddu 2019). Rock mass discontinuities are very seldom distributed in the same orientation but mostly appear in a cluster of nearly parallel discontinuities. Discontinuities in a rock mass can be classified as joints, faults, bedding planes, schistosity, and cleavage. Joints are the most common and critical features that may exist in the rock mass (Bandis et al. 1983, Xing and Guohua 1990). Studying the orientation and spacing of the discontinuities is essential to predicting and estimating the obtainable blocks’ volume for economical mining (Elci and Turk 2014b).