Effect of Temperature–Water Coupled Actions on Joint Morphology

To investigate the effects of temperature–water coupled reactions on joint morphology, saturation tests with various temperatures were conducted on marble and gneiss samples. Afterwards, the morphology scanning tests and analysis of morphological parameters were performed. Results indicate that the discreteness and fluctuation, the maximum frequency of positive height and the discrete probability of the joint surface increase with the increases of S_q, S_s and S_k, respectively. Increased temperature accelerates these tendencies. On the contrary, S_tr decreases with the rise of the temperature and saturation duration. The decreased S_tr demonstrates that the joint surface tends to be anisotropic, and such tendency is accelerated by the decreased increments. Moreover, the analysis of power spectral densities indicates the micro morphological fluctuations occur more often under various temperature–water coupled actions, by comparison with the macro shape fluctuations.