A NEW INSIGHT INTO THE PRODUCTION OF ARTIFICIAL STONE: GEL COATED POLYESTER BINDING MOLDED STONE FROM DIFFERENT SOURCED GEOLOGICAL UNITS

References: 17th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM 2017, www.sgem.org, SGEM2017 Conference Proceedings, ISBN 978-619-7105-98-8 / ISSN 1314-2704, 29 June - 5 July, 2017, Vol. 17, Issue 11, 727-734 pp, DOI: 10.5593/sgem2017/11/S04.092

ABSTRACT

In parallel with technological and scientific developments in the world, people’s choice on the materials is changing. In the light of these developments, mankind’s environmental awareness is also increasing and thus the people aim to live in natural environments. In recent years, natural stones have started to be used widely especially inside and outside of the buildings in big cities in Turkey and the world. The low block efficiency of rocks caused to move the production of artificial stone in the construction sector. In this context, even if the artificial building stones are in demand due to the low rate of block productivity of the natural rocks, the usage of the small parts of these natural materials and some minerals will take its place in the economy and human life by using in this area. In this study, it was aimed to obtain more environmentally sensitive and economical products by using the altered sections of magmatic (pyroxenite, peridotite, gabbro, diorite, diabase, basalt, obsidian and tuff) and metamorphic (schist, marble and slate), sedimentary (sandstone, limestone, travertine) rocks and minerals (opal and specularite). Firstly, raw materials were obtained from different lithologies by sampling and sizing the samples from the altered and unblocked sections of the rocks with different color, texture and mineralogical composition. In order to provide the optimum grain size, the rocks are passed through the jaw crusher to obtain the desired dimensions. Visually, in order to reflect the true colors and texture of the minerals in the natural rocks, the gelcoat application was carried a few hours before the polyester binder mortar produced from natural rock and mineral sands poured into the molds. For increasing the visual superiority and colour diversity, combinations of those natural materials were also used. As a result, artificial building stones were produced with the superior aesthetic features of the healthy and environmentally friendly materials, and they have gained a new perspective in the building materials sector with their minerals and a number of advantages of physico-mechanical characteristics coming from the textural compositional properties of those rocks and minerals.

Keywords: Gelcoat, Artificial stone, Metamorphic rocks, Magmatic rocks, Minerals