Experimental Study on Mechanical Properties of Sandstone Under Freeze-Thaw Condition

The exploitation of mineral resources in China has gradually developed to the west. The freeze-thaw hazards caused by cold weather in the west pose a great challenge to the safety of mining engineering in the cold regions of western China. Taking the number of freeze-thaw cycles as the control condition, the mechanical properties of sandstone and the macroscopic failure characteristics were systematically studied in this paper. The study results showed that the uniaxial compressive strength and tensile strength of sandstone samples generally decreased with the increase of freeze-thaw cycles, but the tensile strength showed higher sensitivity to the cycle numbers. As the number of freeze-thaw cycles increased, the elastic modulus of sandstone decreased gradually, while the Poisson's ratio generally showed an increasing trend. The number of freeze-thaw cycles had a significant effect on the macroscopic failure morphology of sandstone. The research results in this paper can provide a theoretical basis for the stability control of mine slope and the prevention and control of freeze and thaw hazards in the western cold region.