Author(s)

Abdoulaye Diedhiou¹, Libasse Sow^1*, Adama Dione²

¹Civil Engineering Department, Higher Polytechnic School, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal.
²Institute of Earth Sciences, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal.

This paper presents a comparative study of Physical-Chemical characteristics of Limestone and Basalt (from Senegalese quarries). First, chemical tests show that Basalt is richer in silica 51.59% versus 2.84% for Limestone. Basalt is made up of silica minerals and essentially carbonated minerals with a CaO percentage of 50.05%. Chemical results also show that Basalt is richer in iron 12.71% versus 0.44% for Limestone. Finally, they revealed a fire loss of 40.91% for Limestone and 2.44% for Basalt. Second, physical analysis results show that Diack Basalt has the best characteristics with a flattening coefficient of 5% between 5% and 20%; the percentage of pollutants is 0.36% less than 1%; the Los Angeles coefficient is 12.21% below 15, while Bandia Limestone gives a flattening coefficient of 3%; the Los Angeles coefficient of 40.17% and the percentage of pollutant (2.4%) well above 2%. It is noted that the percentage of Limestone pollutant is too high. These important results show the net advantage of Basalt compared to Limestone in terms of physical-chemical characteristics.

Ballast, Railways, Basalt, Limestone, Physical-Chemical Characteristic

Diedhiou, A. , Sow, L. and Dione, A. (2020) Contribution to Comparative Study of Physical-Chemical Characteristics of Diack Basalt and Bandia Limestone for Use in Railway Engineering. Geomaterials, 10, 25-34. doi: 10.4236/gm.2020.102002.