Mechanical and energy release characteristics of different water-bearing sandstones under uniaxial compression

This paper presents the experimental results of calcium argillaceous cemented sandstones with different water contents under uniaxial and cyclic loading conditions. The effects of the water content status on peak strength, deformation, and dissipated energy are discussed. Meanwhile, the acoustic emission energy is also studied based on the accelerating energy release theory and energy distribution density function. The experimental results show that the water content has remarkable effects on the peak strength and elastic modulus by a decrease of 37–58% and 15.7–21% after being saturated, respectively. Both the accumulated dissipated energy and dissipated energy generating ratio of dry specimens are higher than those of the saturated specimens. The acoustic emission energy release rate of dry specimens is higher than those of the saturated specimens, which means a high tendency of sudden failure for dry specimens. Moreover, the distributions of acoustic emission absolute energy are consistent with the normal density distribution function, and the AE energy expectations of dry specimens are higher than those of the saturated ones in the loading process and they show an obvious increasing trend on approaching failure. These conclusions will be helpful for the illumination of water-weakening effects on the mechanics parameters and failure mechanism analysis in view of the releasing energy.