The effect of using different polymer and cement based materials in pore filling applications on technical parameters of travertine stone

Abstract The usage of marbles as a natural building and facing stone shows a gradually rising trend in civil sector all over the world. Due to natural motion, structure of marbles consists of many cracks and holes during formation of rocks. Cracks and holes in the marbles generally increase the wastage ratio and operating costs during production of marbles. Normally, the color consistency, brightness of the colors, hardness, strength, non-porous smooth surface as a hygienic structure are desired properties in the usage of flooring and facing stones. In this study, application of some pore filling methods in travertine and their effects on technical parameters of the rock structure were experimentally investigated. Although travertine has high porosity and is composed of different sizes of pores in its structure, it has a wide usage area in the construction and facing stone industry. Its processing is very easy and is much cheaper than the other marble types. Two different applications were mainly used for the pore filling process. These methods are polyester filling technique and cement filling technique. The use of cement filling method is widely applied in travertine production. The effects of these methods on the rock structure were analyzed and the most suitable filling technique was determined based on the technical data of rock parameters. In this study, in addition to the effective use of cement as a filler material in a travertine stone, different ratios of polymer admixtures as a Stuff (ST) and Poliacrilamid (PA) were used to evaluate the collapse of the filling material through the pores with optimum setting time. These materials were used as a replacement of the cement and calcite with the ratios of 0.1%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0%. Test samples were prepared in the form of 40 cm × 40 cm × 1.2 cm tiles and different ratios of the mixture of cement, calcite and polymer materials were applied on the rock surface. These samples were analyzed in terms of water absorption, point load index and unit volume weight measurements by using appropriate standards, TS 699 and ISRM. According to test results, it was tried to compare the filled and unfilled material properties and to obtain optimum ST–PA and cement usage ratio with respect to improving polishing quality, physical and technical parameters of rock.