Effects of humidity and temperature on subcritical crack growth in sandstone

In order to ensure long-term stability of structures in a rock mass, the study of time-dependent fracturing is essential. The influences of the surrounding environmental conditions and rock fabric on subcritical crack growth in sedimentary rocks in air are yet to be clarified, while the nature of subcritical crack growth in igneous rocks has been studied well. In this study, the influences of temperature and relative humidity on subcritical crack growth in Berea sandstone, Shirahama sandstone and Kushiro sandstone were investigated in air. The load relaxation method of Double Torsion (DT) testing method was used to measure both crack velocity and stress intensity factor under a controlled temperature and relative humidity.Results show that the change of the crack velocity at a given stress intensity factor was unclear when the temperature increased under a constant relative humidity in air. On the other hand, we show that the crack velocity increased by several orders of magnitude when the relative humidity increased threefold or fourfold under a constant temperature at a given stress intensity factor. This increase is much larger than that expected from the conventional concept based on the theory of stress corrosion. It is therefore necessary to consider the additional mechanisms for subcritical crack growth in sandstone. The increase of the crack velocity was larger for sandstone which contained larger amount of clays. We conclude that subcritical crack growth in sandstone in air is affected remarkably by the relative humidity and the amount of clays in rock.

Research highlights
► Effect of humidity and temperature on crack velocity in sandstone was investigated.
► Crack velocity in sandstone increases with increasing relative humidity.
► If rock contains more clays, increase of crack velocity is more significant.
► Temperature has little effect on the change of crack velocity in air.