In these last decades, with the advance of industrialization, the enormous quantity of residue that is discarded by the industry has been generating discussions about eco-efficient solutions. This research has the objective of developing an artificial stone with residue of quartzite and fine quarry gravel (granite), utilizing the vibro-compression vacuum method. The residue was separated in three granulometric ranges with sieving: Large and medium (fine quarry gravel) and fine (quartzite). A statistical treatment was used in the acquired data, utilizing analysis of variance (ANOVA). The characterization was through a physical, mechanical, dilatometric and microstructural analysis. The obtained results classify the material as having high potential to be used for flooring in the civil construction industry, since it has low porosity <0.17% e water absorption < 0.3%, maximum flexural strength > 30 MPa, being able to be utilized in medium and low traffic environments.

Techniques for shock consolidation of powders have been developed for different purposes, including the synthesis of diamond from carbon powder. In this work, a new device configuration for dynamic consolidation is proposed. It consists of three coaxial tubes, with a conical cover made of explosive at the top of the device. The inner tube contains the powder to be compacted. The second is accelerated towards the first in order to promote its collapse. The third confines the explosive. A conical cap at the top of the device triggers the explosive. For a preliminary evaluation, two types of explosives, TNT and Composition B, were used. Preliminary analytical results by the impedance matching method indicate that maximum pressures of 35.44 GPa and 48.16 GPa could be achieved using TNT and Composition B, respectively. Maximum temperatures around 1,600 K and 2,500 K for TNT and Composition B, respectively, are expected. These pressure and temperature values are adequate for transforming graphite into diamond. Preliminary Rietveld refinement indicated that nanodiamond is a fraction of approximately 54% of the detonation resulting powder.

An investigation was carried out on the room temperature ageing of off-stoichiometric DGEBA/TETA epoxy formulations. The results obtained show that the epoxy rich mixtures have their inherent brittleness increased by the ageing treatment due to recrystalization of the unreacted epoxy monomers, although homopolymerization could also play a minor role. The initial reaction steps dominated by the amine addition reactions control the macromolecular structure and the mechanical performance of the stoichiometric and near stoichiometric formulation with excess of epoxy monomer. Plasticization due to absorbed -OH results on a significant increase of the deformability of these formulations. The amine rich mixtures have the more stable structures, although plasticization due to moisture absorption from the surrounding environment also produces an increase on the deformability of all, but one, of the formulations investigated.