The NIST stone test wall is an experiment by the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology to determine how different types of construction stone weather. It includes 2352 samples of stone from 47 different states within the US and 16 different countries. The wall measures approximately 12 m long, 4 m high, 0.6 m thick at the bottom, and 0.3 m at the top.
It includes varieties of andesite, argillite (slate), basalt, bluestone, breccia, conglomerate, coquina, coral, dacite, diabase, diorite, dolomite, gabbro, gneiss, granite, granodiorite, greenstone, labradorite, limestone, marble, melaphyre, pitchstone, pumice, pyrophyllite, quartz, quartzite, sandstone, schist, serpentinite, shellstone, soapstone, syenite, travertine, and tuff.
The wall was built by one stonemason, Vincent Di Benedeto, in 1948. He used two types of stone-setting mortar on the front. He used both a 1:3 lime mortar, with a high calcium hydrate and a 1:0.4:3 portland cement, whiting, and sand mortar.
The wall was moved from its original location in Washington, D.C. to Gaithersburg, Maryland in May 1977.
Famous quotes containing the words stone, test and/or wall:
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Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success.”
—Babette Deutsch (1895–1982)
“I make myself this time
Of wood or granite or lime
A wall too hard for crime
Either to breach or climb....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)