Abstract

The accumulated displacements and fatigues of rock are increased by the stress-hysteresis, induced from repeated frost-thawing. Also the shear strength is decreased by them continuously. The stress-hysteresis is affected by the atmospheric temperature changes, whose behavior is visco-elasticity, usually. Therefore, to do ideal body analysis, Kelvin model could be used to analyze the frost-thawing behavior in winter. In general, rock slope failure occurs by the deterioration of rocks, which is caused by the repetition of freezing-thawing process. In order to keep the safety of such rock mass structures the deterioration process of rock needs to be described quantitatively using some meaningful parameters. In this work, the deterioration process in freezing-thawing cycle of tuff, which is a famous soft porous rock, is investigated through laboratory tests and successfully described as a differential equation for the change of porosity. And then, the deterioration of the mechanical properties of rock, such as Young’s modulus and uniaxial compressive strength, are quantitatively described as a function of the porosity.