The influence of non-uniform water distributions on the energy characteristics of rock under triaxial stress conditions remains inadequately explored. To investigate the effect of water distributions and cyclic loading conditions on the mechanical properties and energy evolution of sandstone, triaxial cyclic compression tests were conducted on sandstone under varied water immersion heights. The results showed a negative correlation between the water immersion height and peak strength. It was also found that the input strain energy, elastic strain energy, and dissipative strain energy of the samples all followed a quadratic polynomial relationship with stress levels. Interestingly, the linear energy storage, dissipation and damping laws of water-immersed sandstone were confirmed under different water immersion heights. The energy storage, dissipation and damping coefficients nearly remain stable and are independent of the water immersion heights, and the unified linear energy storage and dissipation laws of rock with varying water immersion height were obtained. The findings of this study provide a theoretical basis for the stability evaluation and disaster warning of rock engineering under water-rock interactions.
Li et al. (Tue,) studied this question.