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Creep degradation mechanism by water-rock interaction in the red-layer soft rock

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Abstract

Bank slope stability has become a great concern, while the impoundment of Three Gorges reservoir. The bank slope composed of red-layer soft rock has exhibited distinct deformation and failure. Therefore, a typical red-layer soft rock around Three Gorges reservoir area was selected to demonstrate the process of cyclic changes at the reservoir level and immersion-air-dry cyclic action of water-rock inside hydro-fluctuation belt. To meet the objective of this study, a series of creep tests were conducted on the rock specimens at different water-rock interaction stages. The following points were noticed based on the laboratory results: (1) the creep fracture strength and long-term strength of red-layer soft rock degraded significantly during the process of water-rock interaction. For the first three water-rock interaction circulations, the strength of red-layer soft rock degraded quickly and then gradually became stable. (2) During the creep test, the lateral expansion of red-layer soft rock increased significantly regarding to the number of cycles. (3) The creep curve includes three typical stages at failure stress level—primary (damped) stage, secondary (steady-state) stage, and tertiary (nonlinear accelerated) stage. As the number of cycles increased, the percentage of secondary stage diminished gradually. However, the tertiary stage showed a gradual increment, since the plasticity of the specimens was strengthened by water-rock interaction. (4) The shear failure characteristics of the specimens became highly considerable during the process of water-rock interaction, and there have been a gradual increment of shear rupture zone. (5) The SEM results showed that the specimen microstructure changed its state from dense to loose and porous. The findings of this research provide a good basis for long-term stability analysis of bank slope.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin (China Institute of Water Resources and Hydro-power Research, Grant NO.IWHR-SKL-201316), the Master Thesis Fund of Civil and Architecture Institute of Three Gorges University (Grant No.2015PY11), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.51309141, 51439003).

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Correspondence to H.F. Deng.

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Deng, H., Zhou, M., Li, J. et al. Creep degradation mechanism by water-rock interaction in the red-layer soft rock. Arab J Geosci 9, 601 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-016-2604-6

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