Rocks in Palestine is one of the most important natural resources, the Palestinian stone that is produced is the finest stone in the world in terms of features, colors, and its conformity to all standards and specifications, stone and marble industry is one of the most important industries in Palestine because of its considerable economic benefits, especially its contribution to national income and provide employment opportunities for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
The main objectives of this project was to explore ways to develop and modify artificial stone to suit the various climatic changes, as is the case in most types of natural.
It is known that natural stone is characterized by its own strength and absorbing a little water, and these features vary from one species to another, depending on the extraction place, but according to previous studies, many problems are experienced such as the difficult forming and cost of the processing stages. So In such project, an attempt was conducted to manufacture artificial stone with high quality and less cost comparing with natural stone.
Based on these objectives, set of experiments were conducted to study possibility of adding chemicals or abundant materials like quarries waste to increase the mechanical properties of the mixture, and reduce environment pollution, and each sample was examined by series of tests (fracture, absorption test), and all of these steps was achieved according to Palestinian standards of artificial building stones (P.S. 127).
The results were positive, where suitable blends of high mechanical and low prices were obtained. The optimum mixture was 1:2:3 (C:S:G) where the fracture strength was 510KN (51MPa), the absorption rate was 3.9% which is specified as type A, and the other mixtures was specified as type B except some of mixtures which exceeded the limits of Palestinian standards of artificial building stones, and the cost was 28 NIS/m2. And according to the quarries waste which was added to the mixtures some of them was in the range of the standards and the other was not except when they cured in the furnace at 110◦C for 24 hours.
After making the feasibility study for the project it was turned to be feasible with a net profit of 450156 NIS yearly, and the payback period was 11 months for a production rate of 100 m2/day.