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Influence of Marble’s Texture on its Mechanical Behavior

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Abstract

This research work studied the influence of texture on the mechanical properties of crystalline rocks at the scale of the laboratory sample. The experiments were performed on a marble varying in texture, so that the study was conducted on homogeneous (entirely xenoblastic or totally granoblastic) and heterogeneous (mix of the two textures) specimens. The mechanical behavior of the homogeneous and heterogeneous samples was investigated with static and dynamic, destructive and nondestructive tests, in natural conditions, at the laboratory temperature, and at higher temperatures. The specimens were heated to 100, 200, and 300 °C, in order to examine the effect of heating temperature on the elastic modulus and P-waves velocity. As a result, the pure granoblastic marble exhibits values of the elastic modulus, P-waves velocity, and strengths, both in natural conditions and on heated specimens, lower than xenoblastic samples. Such different behavior can be explained by a higher grain boundaries porosity of the granoblastic marble. On heterogeneous samples, only the Rock Impact Hardness Number (RIHN) appears able to highlight the dependence of the mechanical properties on the rock texture. In particular, the impact strength improves with increasing the percentage of xenoblastic texture inside the specimen.

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Acknowledgments

The experimentation was performed at the laboratory LAGIRN of the University of Bologna, Italy. The authors would like to thank Barbara Ravaglia, Celso Vescogni, and Fausto Peddis for their technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM), University of Bologna, via Terracini 28, 40131, Bologna, Italy

    Annalisa Bandini & Paolo Berry

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  1. Annalisa Bandini
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  2. Paolo Berry
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Correspondence to Annalisa Bandini.

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Bandini, A., Berry, P. Influence of Marble’s Texture on its Mechanical Behavior. Rock Mech Rock Eng 46, 785–799 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-012-0315-1

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