TThe course covers the description of petrographic, petrophysical, and petrochemical features of rocks used as building stones, dam fillers, river and coastal embankments, road and rail ballast, and as raw materials for cement aggregates, mortar materials, bricks binders, ceramics and glazing. Professional issues concerning the exploration and definition of mineral deposits and their cultivation are given along with causes of degradation and stone restoration techniques.
Amoroso G.G., Camaiti M. – Scienza dei materiali e restauro – Alinea Editrice (Firenze, 1997).
Lazzarini L., Tabasso Laurenzi M. - Il restauro della Pietra – Cedam (Padova, 1986).
Manning D.A.C. – Introduction to Industrial Minerals – Chapman & Hall (Cambridge, 1995).
Primavori P. – Pianeta Pietra – Giorgio Zusi Editore (Verona, 1999).
Learning Objectives
Knowledge of methods for exploration and definition of geo-materials useful for applications and uses in architecture, industrial applications, and cultural heritage, as well as to provide knowledge for professional certification of stone, request the geologist under the statutory regulations force.
Prerequisites
Principle of Geology, Petrography and Geochemistry.
Teaching Methods
Theory will be furnished in classes, and it is supplemented by optical microscope training and geochemical laboratories.
Type of Assessment
The cultural skill will be checked through an oral colloquium.
Course program
Introduction to main features used for the classification of geomaterials: minerals and rocks; principles of phase equilibria in natural systems with the application to binary and ternary diagrams. Analytical methods and protocol for the petrographic, geochemical and isotopic study of geomaterials used in industry, architecture and of interest for cultural heritage.
Technical properties of geomaterials, qualitative and quantitative, and related norms for their coding: colour, drawn, grainsize, density, porosity, permeability, thermic dilatation and conducibility, hardness, durability.
Weathering of rocks and deterioration of stones in modern artefact and building and in those of cultural heritage. Petrographic investigations, recovery, cleaning, strengthening, protection, substitution.
Survey, definition, quarrying of natural stones and minerals for use in industry, architecture and cultural heritages.
Tracing for geographic provenance of geomaterials used in the industry, architecture, and cultural heritages. Isotopic methods for the definition of parameter in palaeo-ethnology, archaeology, painting.
Characteristics and quality of stones used in the preparations of aggregates for building engineering, coast protection, railway ballast, and road constructions. Characteristics and definition of shales and sheet-silicate minerals used for the industry: kaolin, bentonite, etc.
Firing transformation of geomaterials: phase diagrams applied to ceramic, bricks, glass, concrete, refractory. Phase rule, binary and ternary systems: MgO-SiO2; Al2O3-SiO2; CaO-MgO-SiO2; MgO-Al2O3-SiO2; CaO-Na2O-SiO2.
Geological raw material for the industry of glass; types of glass; petrography and geochemistry of raw materials.
Geological raw materials for the production of cement and concrete. Hydraulic and aerial cements.
The raw materials in the process of brick production.