Unit 6. Building stones.

Vocabulary.

Clay – глина

Dwelling - жилье

Igneous – вулканический

Mica - слюда

Sedimentary – осадочный

Slate – сланец

In many places, as in hilly regions, stones are more freely available than clay bricks. They occur naturally and need not to be manufactured so that stone masonry becomes cheaper than brick work. From early days, even before bricks were invented by the humans, stones were used to build dwellings. Stones are more permanent than most of other natural building materials like wood. Most of the prehistoric monuments that remain even today are made of stones. Stones were preferred before the advent of concrete for heavy engineering constructions like bridge piers, harbour walls, seaside walls and they are still used for facing work. Today, stones form an important source of aggregates (both coarse and fine) for concrete. Thus, stone is an important building material that all civil engineers are familiar with.

A study of rock-forming minerals belongs to Geology. As already stated, stones, depending on the type, can be used in building for masonry, flooring, roofing and paving roads, as well as aggregates for concrete.

Some of the common stones and their uses are as follows:

1. Granite (Igneous rock). It is used for heavy engineering works for bridge piers, columns, retaining walls, random rubble, foundation, dressed stonework and for coarse aggregates in concrete. They can also be cut into slabs and used as floor slabs and stone facing slabs.

2. Basalt and trap (Igneous rocks). They have the same use as granite.

3. Gneiss (Metamorphic rock). It is used in the same way as granite. It can be identified by its elongated platy minerals often mixed with mica.

4. Quartzite (Metamorphic rock). It is also used in the same way as granite but it is not used for ornamental work as it is brittle.

5. Marble (Metamorphic rock). It is used for ornamentation, flooring and stonefacing slabs.

6. Slate (Metamorphic rock). It is used for damp-proofing flooring and roofing.

7. Limestone (Sedimentary). It is used for walls as coarse aggregates for concrete but also as a base material for cement.

8. Sandstones (Sedimentary). They are used for ornamental work and paving.

9. Laterite (Decomposed from igneous rocks). It can occur in hard and soft varieties. The soft variety is used for wall after curing while the hard variety is used for paving the pathways.

Answer the questions:

1. What advantages does stone have as a building material?

2. What are stones used for nowadays?

3. When was stone a preferred building material?

4. What stones can be used for heavy engineering?

5. What stones can be used for paving?

Exercises:

1) Decide whether the statements are true or false:

1. Stones are cheaper than bricks.

2. Nowadays stones are only used as aggregates for concrete.

3. Stones were never used for heavy engineering.

4. Quartzite is not used for ornamental work because it is soft.

5. Laterite is used for walls and paving.

2) Match the words from the left with their Russian equivalents:

3) Guess the word by its definition:

1. A structure that supports a building

2. Small blocks of clay used in building

3. A building or place of shelter to live in

4. A large, thick, flat piece of stone

5. A shiny silicate mineral found in granite and other rocks

4) Open the brackets and put the verbs in a correct form:

1. People (use) stones to build dwellings from early times.

2. Stones (use) for heavy engineering constructions before the invention of concrete.

3. Geology (study) rock-forming minerals.

4. Most prehistoric monuments (build) of stones.

5. Granite often (cut) into slabs.

References: https://books.google.ru/books? id=MBamtq45OykC& printsec=frontcover#v=onepage& q& f=false