Summary

The rock materials are used in construction with diversity in their applications. Before they are extracted from mines or quarries, it presents in a balanced alteration state with the environment, which was achieved in a geological interval of time. From the moment of extraction to the application, the environment is changed, then the rock begins to undergo changes until it reaches a new equilibrium. The rate of change in his new environment depends on the susceptibility of the rock to alteration. Thus, the alterability will depend on the qualities of material from the external environment and the exposure time. A rock can change in a time interval which may vary from thousands of years to a few months depending on the characteristics of alterability. This paper aims a critical analysis of laboratory testing procedures to define the properties of rock materials. The test procedures that exist stands out the study of the durability which is an important subject of research and permits to analyze the variation of the long term behavior of the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of the materials exposed to degradation agents. The way in which agents act on the materials can mobilize different degradation mechanisms. The main degradation mechanisms of physical and chemical in rock materials stand out to abrasion, disaggregated by crystal growth, the expansion due to thermal effects, fracturing for stress relief, hydrolysis and oxidation. The knowledge about the rock and its main characteristics will define the main laboratory testing procedures that better define the behavior of this material in the subject field degradation. The result of this paper presents the different types of Tests submitted in technical literature with ratings and testing procedures used to expose materials to different degradation mechanisms, trying to simulate the conditions of the local exposure of the material.

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