CONTROL OF POROSITY ON DURABILITY OF LIMESTONE AT THE GREAT SPHINX, EGYPT

The study of the porosimetric data obtained from intrusion, extrusion, and reintrusion of mercury in limestone samples from the region of the sphinx reveals the characteristics of the pore system and allows analysis of durability factors. The pore system in all these rocks consists of "ink-bottle" pores. As the initial intrusion and extrusion have been completed, some mercury always remains in the sample. This trapped mercury represents the volume of large voids of the ink-bottle pore system. The distribution of the volume of the narrow throats of this system is revealed by the reintrusion curves. The curves obtained by plotting extrusion and reintrusion volumes against corresponding pressures enclose a loop. These curves relate to pore throats only. As entrapment of mercury does not occur in these pores, their distribution frequency and sorting seem to cause this hysteresis. The pressure/volume data also have been interpreted in terms of work needed to inject and extrude mercury from the pores. This thermodynamic analysis of the data has provided an additional, although less well-defined, means to characterize the porous stones. We have used in this study the model-dependent pore-size distributions and model-independent thermodynamic properties to develop durability factors. The factors based upon the combination of pore sizes in the range of <0.5, 0.5-5, and >5 μm precisely fit the observed durability of limestones at the sphinx, some of which have been exposed for more than 5,000 yr to the ambient atmosphere. © 1990 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.