The Effect of Confining Pressure and Water Content on Energy Evolution Characteristics of Sandstone under Stepwise Loading and Unloading

To investigate the mechanical properties and energy evolution characteristics of sandstone depending on the water contents and confining pressure, the uniaxial and triaxial tests were conducted. The test results show that the strain energy was stored in the sandstone samples at the prepeak stage, and that is suddenly released when the failure occurred, and energy dissipation is sharply increased at the postpeak stage. The damage and energy dissipation characteristics of the samples are observed clearly under the stepwise loading and unloading process. The critical strain energy and energy dissipation show a clear exponential relationship. The critical elastic energy decreases linearly as the water content increases. As the confining pressure increases, the critical elastic energy of the samples transforms from linear to exponential. The concept of energy enhancement factor is proposed to characterize the strengthening effect induced by the confining pressure on the energy storage capacity of the rock samples. The energy evolution of the sandstone samples is more sensitive to the confining pressure than that of the water content.