Investigation of mechanical properties of soft rock due to laboratory reproduction of physical weathering process

The focus of the present study is on soft rocks (moderately weathered granite and artificial rock) that have suffered physical weathering due to changes in temperature and confining pressure. Unconfined compression tests were conducted on moderately weathered granite, and triaxial compression tests were conducted on artificial rocks. Two test plans were conducted to study the effect of weathering. In the first plan, the specimens suffered weathering process cycles under unconfined conditions, followed by triaxial tests with different confining pressures (0 kPa, 30 kPa, 60 kPa, and 90 kPa). In the second plan, the specimens suffered weathering process cycles under a certain confining pressure (0 kPa, 30 kPa, 60 kPa, and 90 kPa), and the shear strength and initial Young's modulus in each weathering cycle was then studied. Finally, based on the formula of the shear wave velocity and initial Young's modulus, the relationships between normalized shear strength and normalized shear wave velocity were found. These relationships can be used in a further study to understand rock strength on site by detecting the shear wave velocity. The results of this study show that artificial rocks (cement treated sand, CTS) can be used as a homogeneous material to simulate soft rock. In the stress-strain curves, the initial Young's modulus showed no significant change when increasing the confining pressure. The initial Young's modulus showed a nonlinear decrease when the weathering process cycle increased. When soft rocks suffer the weathering process at a certain confining pressure, the relationship between normalized shear strength and normalized shear wave velocity was linear. When soft rocks suffer the weathering process at different confining pressures, the normalized shear strength under a lower confining pressure dropped faster than when the confining pressure was higher. (C) 2017 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society.