Experimental Study on the Disintegration Properties of Red Sandstone

Abstract

The disintegration of soft rock in water is an important cause of engineering disasters, and the research on the disintegration characteristics is also of great significance for the design and production practice of major projects. Considering this, a series of slake durability experiments were conducted to explore the disintegration behaviours of red sandstone under cyclic drying-wetting cycles, and the Soil Mechanics' theory was introduced to investigate these artificial weathering of red sandstone. Then, based on the analyzing of the grain size distribution, the predicting model of the disintegration breakage of red sandstone through Weibull distribution was established. In addition, the proposed model was compared with the widely used fractal model to illustrate the advantage of established model. The physical significance of the parameters was captured. Moreover, the disintegration behaviours of red sandstone were quantified by the newly derived and traditional disintegration ratio. The updated expressions of gradation indicators (i.e., C u and C c Þ of unified soil classification were acquired based on the proposed model.

Dynamic elasticity modulus of weathered red sandstone soil subject to drying-wetting cycles

“…Red sandstone can easily disintegrate and soften when exposed to water, which a characteristics different from other common sandstone [14][15][16][17] . The change of moisture content in soils causes the disintegration of red sandstone, which is also a natural phenomenon 18 .…”