The effect of saturation on the physical and mechanical behavior of some rock samples

Abstract

Different major factors control the strength of solid rocks. Moisture content is one of the most important factors, which can change the physical and mechanical behavior of intact rock as well as rock mass. Several early studies have shown that rock is weaker if tested wet rather than dry. In this paper, the density, P-wave velocity, uniaxial compressive strength, Brazilian tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity of seven different intact rock samples were measured under both dry and saturated conditions. The porosity of the samples was reported as well. Based on the obtained results, some correlations were proposed for estimating the saturated physical and mechanical properties from dry ones. The proposed correlations include different rock types and are more general than the previously reported ones. Comparing the obtained results showed that the mechanical and physical properties of weaker samples are more sensitive to the saturation process. Moreover, among the different mechanical parameters, Brazilian tensile strength exhibited more sensitivity to saturation. Comparing the results with the calculated porosities revealed that porosity is one of the key factors in the effect of saturation on physical and mechanical parameters. It seems that in the more porous rock samples, greater changes in the different measured parameters occur after saturation.