Experimental study on influence of wetting-drying cycle on dynamic fracture and energy dissipation of red-sandstone

To study the influence of the wetting-drying cycles and loading rate on dynamic fracture toughness and energy dissipation of rocks under the dynamic loads, the split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) system was used to perform the dynamic impact tests on NSCB specimens of red sandstone after different wetting-drying cycles. The loading rate response characteristics of fracture toughness of specimens after different wetting-drying cycles were analyzed, and the energy dissipation law of dynamic fracture under the impact loads was obtained. The results show that under a given number of wetting-drying cycles, with the increase of loading rate, the dynamic fracture toughness shows an overall trend of increasing. When the critical loading rate K˙IC is exceeded, the dynamic fracture toughness no longer increases. At the fixed loading rate, the dynamic fracture toughness of red sandstone decreases linearly with the increase of wetting-drying cycles, and the higher the loading rate, the more sensitive the fracture toughness to the wetting-drying cycle. With the increase of the loading rate, the dynamic fracture energy increases exponentially and becomes more sensitive to the loading rate. Under the fixed wetting-drying cycles, the dynamic fracture toughness of red sandstone has a logarithmic relationship with the increase of fracture energy. •Wet-dry cycle has an obvious degradation effect on the dynamic fracture properties.•The loading rate sensitivity of non-corroded specimen is the strongest.•An empirical equation between fracture toughness and loading rate was established.•The dynamic fracture energy is exponentially related to the loading rate.