Numerical disintegration of water sensitive rock: case study of mudrock

Abstract

Water sensitive rock is harmful for the stability of geotechnical engineering due to its obviously disintegrating property. In this paper, the disintegration characters of the mudrock had been detected firstly by the X-ray computerized tomographic scanner. The visual observation indicated that the disintegrating mechanism of this material under water environment is that the microfractures firstly provide the initial path for the water to seep into the unloaded mudrock, then the seeped water would induce the swelling of clay minerals and ion solution of carbonate. As a result, cracks would appear and extend due to the damage of the mudrock’s integrity. In addition, a numerical model was also developed to describe the disintegrating process of mudrock.

Keywords:

• Water sensitive rock
• Disintegrating process
• Numerical simulation
• CT scanning

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no.s 51379202 and 41172284).