Predicting the uniaxial compressive strength and Durability of carbonate aggregate from rock texture

Many practical rock aggregate studies rely on rock strength and also durability. Many different tests are existed for determining rock strength and durability, but uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and slake durability (SD) test are commonly used for this purpose. Also, rock material is commonly classified based on its UCS and SD. In addition, the determination of UCS or SD is sometimes difficult due to the required and preparation samples; this can be overcome by indirection methods such as petrographic studies. Rock thin sections and petrographic studies are a part of preliminary aggregate studies according to ASTM specifications. In this study, the texture of rock aggregate was quantified by texture coefficient (TC) which can be used to put a number on rock texture with studies carried out on the rock thin section using image analysis (Eq. 1). Overall, many researchers proposed TC as a good way of describing and classifying different rocks and predicting some engineering properties.