Slake durability and mineralogical properties of some pyroclastic and sedimentary rocks

Slake durability of rocks is an important property of rock-mass and rock-materials in geotechnical practice. The slake durability of rocks is closely related to their mineralogical composition. In this paper, mineralogical examinations and slake durability tests for argillaceous clastic rocks, especially pyroclastic rocks, sandstones and mudstones of Neogene Tertiary age from Japan, were performed in order to assess the slake durability and rock alteration process of these rocks as well as to understand the relationship between mineralogy and durability.The mineral composition and textural features of the rocks were studied by means of optical microscopy (OM), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), electron microprobe analysis (EPMA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In addition, the slake durability test was carried out by using the standard testing method of ISRM Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. 16 (1979) 148] in distilled water and in the aqueous solutions with dissolved electrolytes of NaCl and CaCl₂.The pyroclastic rocks and tuffaceous sandstone, rich in di-octahedral and tri-octahedral Fe smectite, respectively, show distinctively different slaking behaviors. The pyroclastic rocks show relatively high slaking (Id₂=55.5% and Id₁₀=10.5%) than the tuffaceous sandstone (Id₂=94.1% and Id₁₀=87.8%, refer to text for Id₂ and Id₁₀). This difference in the slake durability observed in these rocks is due to the microscopic occurrences of smectite present in the interspaces between the particles (pyroclastic rocks) and zeolite cementing the interspaces (tuffaceous sandstone) as alteration minerals. In addition, the durability results of tuffaceous sandstone show that the slake durability decreases as the degree of weathering increases (weathered material Id₂=88.7% and Id₁₀=65.3%). Furthermore, two mudstones of Miocene and Pliocene ages, having different clay mineral compositions (smectite vs. illite+chlorite), show the lowest and the highest slake durability among the tested clastic rocks. Hard mudstone shows the highest (Id₂=98.1% and Id₁₀=95.5%) while the soft mudstone shows the lowest (Id₂=33.9% and Id₆=0.4%.) slake durability. Thus, the slake durability of pyroclastic and sedimentary rocks is greatly affected by their mineral composition and texture, and is closely related to their alteration history. Slake durability is also affected by the kind of dissolved electrolyte and its concentration in the aqueous solution, providing some useful information for geotechnical practice.