Abstract
In cold climate regions, rock engineering structures are subjected to repeated processes of freeze–thaw weathering and consequently the integrity of these structures will gradually deteriorate. The resulted reduction in rock strength makes the structures become increasingly more vulnerable to external loads, particularly to dynamic loads such as blasting or earthquakes, even when these loads are below the original designed capacity. In this work, the reductions in static and dynamic strengths of sandstones after they are treated with different number of freeze–thaw cycles were studied using conventional UCS experiments and impact tests with split Hopkinson pressure bar apparatus. Based on the experimental results, a decay model was used to describe the reduction of rock strength with the increasing number of freeze–thaw weathering cycles. For the prediction of the degradation of dynamic rock strength corresponding to freeze–thaw weathering, a model describing the dynamic increase factor for the dynamic rock strength corresponding to different strain rates and specimen sizes was proposed and its parameters are obtained by regression analysis of published experimental data. These two models were then combined into a unified model which can be used to describe the reduction in the dynamic strength of rocks when they are subjected to repeated freeze–thaw weathering processes. Though only tested on sandstones, the proposed unified model, with different parameters, is expected to be applicable to other types of rocks as long as the rocks undergo the same or similar damage mechanism when they are subjected to freeze–thaw weathering processes.
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Abbreviations
- \({\varepsilon _{\text{i}}}\), \({\varepsilon _{\text{r}}}\), \({\varepsilon _{\text{t}}}\) :
-
Incident, reflected and transmitted strain measured by strain gauges on the bars
- \({P_1}\) :
-
Force between the specimen and incident bar (kN)
- \({P_2}\) :
-
Force between the specimen and transmission bar (kN)
- \({A_{\text{e}}}\) :
-
Cross-sectional area of the bars (mm2)
- \({A_{\text{s}}}\) :
-
Cross-sectional area of the specimen (mm2)
- \({C_{\text{b}}}\) :
-
Wave propagation velocity in the bars (km/s)
- \({E_{\text{e}}}\) :
-
Young’s modulus of the bars (GPa)
- \({L_{\text{s}}}\) :
-
Length of the specimen (mm)
- \(E\) :
-
Elastic modulus of the specimen (GPa)
- I, \({I_0}\), \(~{I_N}\) :
-
Rock integrity, original integrity of the rock, integrity after N number of freeze–thaw weathering cycles
- \(\lambda\) :
-
Decay constant
- N:
-
Number of freeze–thaw cycles
- \(n\) :
-
An exponent related to the consideration of fracture mechanics
- DIFUCS :
-
Dynamic increase factor of uniaxial compressive strength
- UCSs, UCSd :
-
Static and dynamic uniaxial compressive strength of the rock (MPa)
- \({\text{UC}}{{\text{S}}_{\text{R}}}\), \({\text{UCS}}_{{\text{0}}}^{{\text{s}}}\) :
-
Reference uniaxial compressive strength and original static uniaxial compressive strength of the rock (MPa)
- \(\dot {\varepsilon }\), \({\dot {\varepsilon }_{\text{s}}}\), \({\dot {\varepsilon }_{\text{R}}}\), \({\dot {\varepsilon }^*}\) :
-
Strain rate, static strain rate, reference strain rate, and critical strain rate (s−1)
- \(\alpha\), \({\alpha _{\text{s}}}\), \(\beta\), \(\gamma\), \({\gamma _{\text{s}}}\) :
-
Model parameters
- SHPB:
-
Split Hopkinson pressure bar
- UCS:
-
Uniaxial compressive strength
- DIF:
-
Dynamic increase factor
- L/D:
-
Length/diameter of the specimen
- ISRM:
-
International Society for Rock Mechanics
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Acknowledgements
The research presented in this paper was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51474252, No. 51774220 and No. 41502327), the Innovation Driven Plan of Central South University (Grant No. 2015CX005). The first author also likes to thank the Chinese Scholarship Council for financial support to his joint PhD studies at the University of Adelaide.
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Ke, B., Zhou, K., Xu, C. et al. Dynamic Mechanical Property Deterioration Model of Sandstone Caused by Freeze–Thaw Weathering. Rock Mech Rock Eng 51, 2791–2804 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-018-1495-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-018-1495-0