Engineering behaviour of phyllites

Phyllite clay–cement composites having improved engineering properties and material applications

“…Phyllite clays are rocks (metamorphosed to a low extent) of slate clay materials having an abundance of fine-grained phyllosilicates, which gives them an unctuous feel and the existence of preferential cleavage makes them easily breakable into thin sheets (Ramamurthy et al, 1993;Valera et al, 2002;Garzón et al, 2009a;Adom-Asamoah and Owusu-Afrifa, 2010;Oliva-Urcia et al, 2010). Phyllite clays can range in color from beige to violet and from reddish to gray and black.…”

“…In recent years, a few publications have reported on different applications of phyllite clays in materials technology; e.g. as a filler in plastic (Valera et al, 2002) and concrete (Ramamurthy et al, 1993;Adom-Asamoah and Owusu-Afrifa, 2010) products. In southeast Spain, phyllite clays have been used as raw materials for some specific applications on account of their compaction properties and very low permeability, including: as covering and to waterproof roofs and the central area of ponds, core material in zoned dams and also for urban waste landfill applications (Garzón et al, 2009a(Garzón et al, ,b, 2010.…”

Shear behaviour of reinforced phyllite concrete beams

“…One of such aggregates, phyllites; are foliated rocks with preferential cleavage that has the property of easily breaking up into thin slabs [2]. The presence of phyllites has been reported in several parts of the world such as Europe [3,4], South America [5], the Himalayan region [6] and Africa [7]. In Ghana (especially the gold mining areas), phyllite aggregates have become convenient in their use as a construction material as a result of its availability in addition the scarcity of material coupled with the high cost of normal aggregates.…”

Impact of highly weathered geology on pipe-jacking forces

“…The 3D numerical modelling of the studied pipe-jacking drives was simulated using the commercially available Plaxis 3D (Plaxis bv, 2013) in order to validate the applicability of direct shear test results to the assessment of jacking forces. The modelling technique described here was used by Ong and Choo (2016) to assess the jacking forces measured from highly fractured geology.…”

“…It is typically necessary to have intact rock core lengths or prismatic specimens in order to proceed with rock strength tests, such as the uniaxial compression strength test, point load test, Brazilian tensile test, triaxial test or shear wave velocity test (Bhasin et al, 1995;Gurocak et al, 2012;Ramamurthy et al, 1993;Saroglou et al, 2004;Shea and Kronenberg, 1993;Tiwari and Rao, 2007). However, the highly fractured Tuang Formation meant that it was difficult to attain sound rock core lengths, which subsequently created challenges in measuring the rock strength parameters.…”