Water saturation induced changer in the indirect (Brazilian) tensile strength and the failure mode of some igneous rock materials

Abstract

The present study concentrates on water induced strength reduction and variation of the failure mode in indirect (Brazilian) tension tests of several igneous rock materials under three moisture cases of oven-dry, air-dry and fully saturated states. In this respect, two andesite and three tuff materials which contain no visible flaws were subjected to indirect tensile strength tests using the Brazilian disc method. Once the tension tests were carried out, photographs of the broken samples were taken to investigate the changes in the failure mode. As a result, it was found that tensile strengths of the samples were highly reduced with the presence of the water and the natural humidity. Additionally, it has been deduced that the failure mode of the samples mainly shifts to central fracturing with the presence of natural moisture and saturation. Although the central crack is the ideal type for the theory of Brazilian tensile strength determination, indefinite contact properties like contact angle and frictions are some notable issues to make only considering failure shapes for the validity of the test results misleading.