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Effects of temperature and acid solution on the physical and tensile mechanical properties of red sandstones

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Abstract

Recent infrastructure development in China and other developing countries has attracted global attention. As a control project of traffic engineering, tunnels also have rapidly increased. However, fire accidents induced by traffic accident or gas explosion frequently occur in tunnels, causing irreversible damage to the tunnel rocks. Moreover, the corrosive effects of acid rain or polluted groundwater have a long-term effect on the tunnel and surrounding rocks. In this paper, physical and thermophysical properties tests as well as Brazilian splitting test were conducted on red sandstone specimens after heating at a variety of different temperature and acidic solution erosion. The responses of surface features, mass, P wave velocity, porosity and thermal conductivity, and the tensile strength of the red sandstone were compared and analyzed. In addition, the effects of high temperature (25–1000 °C) and acidic solution on microscopic structures, defect morphology, and mineral reaction of the red sandstone were observed and analyzed. The experimental results show that high temperature and acidic chemical solution significantly affects the physical and mechanical properties of the rock mass. The typical parameters, such as surface features, mass and P wave velocity, porosity, thermal conductivity, and tensile strength, are closely affected by acidity. In addition, we observed that the physical properties of red sandstones change with temperature and can be divided into three stages, and at 300–800 °C stage, they significantly declined. The results provide a basis for rock damage and failure induced by fire and acidic groundwater seepage in tunnels.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments on our paper.

Funding

This study received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41702326); the Innovative Experts, Long-term Program of Jiangxi Province (jxsq2018106049); the Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation (20202ACB214006); and the Supported by Program of Qingjiang Excellent Young Talents, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resources and Environment Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, 341000, China

    Zhen Huang, Wei Zeng, Shijie Li, Qixiong Gu & Kui Zhao

  2. School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Zhen Huang & Yun Wu

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  1. Zhen Huang
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  2. Wei Zeng
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  3. Yun Wu
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  4. Shijie Li
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  5. Qixiong Gu
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Contributions

All the authors have designed this study equally. YW collected the data for this research work. SL and QG analyzed and interpreted the results of the study. ZH and WZ drafted the initial manuscript. ZH and KZ have revised and restructured the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wei Zeng or Kui Zhao.

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Huang, Z., Zeng, W., Wu, Y. et al. Effects of temperature and acid solution on the physical and tensile mechanical properties of red sandstones. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 20608–20623 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11866-x

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