Investigation of Diopside Rocks from Deposits of the «Aldanslyuda» Mining and Processing Plant as a Raw Material for Concrete Production

The paper presents the results of studies of diopside rocks collected from the“Aldanslyuda” mining and processing plant dumps as aggregates for the production of heavy-weight and sand concretes. The presented data shows that the average chemical composition of these diopside rocks is on: SiO2 - 46.38%, CaO2 - 16.53% and MgO2 - 15.30%. The low content of magnesium and calcium dioxides indicates that even when the specific surface area is incriesed to 5000 cm 2 /g and above, the diopside will only work as a filler. The mineralogical composition of rocks is represented by diopside, actinolite and pargasite. It was found that it is more efficient to use diopside rocks as an aggregate to produce concrete. By testing the crushed stone of a mixture of a fraction from 5 to 20 mm and sand from sifting of crushing solid stone, it was shown that these diopside rocks are suitable as aggregates to produce heavy-weight and sand concretes of strength class up to 60 MPa. To consider the possibility of using them to obtain high-strength concretes, it is necessary to conduct more experimantal research