Hydrophilic and strength-softening characteristics of clay-rich rocks

Hydrophilic and strength-softening characteristics of clay-rich rocks | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Hydrophilic and strength-softening characteristics of clay-rich rocks Zongfang Han, Mohua Bu, Yuqiong Li, Manchao He This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5315257/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract To better understand the mechanism of the strength weakening process of clay-rich rocks after interacting with water, the relationship between mineral composition, microscopic pore structure and gaseous water adsorption characteristics of clay-rich rocks was comprehensively analyzed by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mercury injection test. The results show a positive correlation between water absorption and both clay minerals and montmorillonite (MMT) content. The more complex the microporous structure is, the more pores in the diameter of 0.2 ~ 2µm accumulated, and the worse the water absorption capacity obtained. The innovation of this study lies in quantitatively calculating the weight coefficients of influencing factors, highlighting the contribution of pore structure and hydrophilic mineral composition to the strength of clay-rich rocks samples after water absorption, which was not covered in previous studies. The results show that the weight coefficients are fractal dimension of pores, effective porosity and clay mineral content in order. The clay minerals content is negatively correlated with the strength of the clay rocks after water absorption, that is, the presence of MMT is the key influencing factor of strength softening in this study, and the paper concludes with the results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to illustrate more intuitively the effect of hydrated MMT on strength. The research results provide a new insight to better understand the strength softening caused by water sensitivity of clay-rich rocks and to establish the correlation between the macroscopic mechanical behavior and the micromechanical mechanism. Clay-rich rocks Water absorption tests Strength softening Clay minerals Weight coefficients Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files Supplementarymaterial.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-5315257","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":369766462,"identity":"a2be3980-fbd7-4c31-b43d-390848a2667b","order_by":0,"name":"Zongfang Han","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chinese Academy of Sciences","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Zongfang","middleName":"","lastName":"Han","suffix":""},{"id":369766463,"identity":"4020554c-953e-4cd6-9f4b-65772ced314c","order_by":1,"name":"Mohua Bu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"China University of Mining and Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Mohua","middleName":"","lastName":"Bu","suffix":""},{"id":369766464,"identity":"ea93eaef-4e91-46a4-aa59-8c94bd2d51aa","order_by":2,"name":"Yuqiong Li","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA30lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACPmYQaQDE7I0NQPIAYS1scC08B4nVAmdJJDAQqYWdx0ziTYFNnnzk49YNH2ruMPC3H2D8XIDXYTxmknMM0ooNbye23Zxx7BmDxJkEZukZBLRI8xgcTtw4O7HtNm/DYQaGGyBBorTMPNh2+y9QizzRWuZLMLbdZgRqMSCsha3YEuiXxA08QL/0HDvMY3gmsVkanxZ+/sMbb7z5Y5M4v/34sxs/ag7LyR0/fPAzPi0MDBwGDCAFBgcgXCCbsQGvBmBCeQDWIk9I3SgYBaNgFIxcAACDQEkMVz/GjgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Chinese Academy of Sciences","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yuqiong","middleName":"","lastName":"Li","suffix":""},{"id":369766465,"identity":"27d9b73d-412f-4b03-8751-0b19174eeb67","order_by":3,"name":"Manchao He","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"China University of Mining and Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Manchao","middleName":"","lastName":"He","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-10-23 03:23:17","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5315257/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5315257/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":86986730,"identity":"83fa00a8-9a55-4172-9f58-846613973ec6","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-18 03:31:49","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1290695,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5315257/v1_covered_b50e1cbc-e2fa-4f16-90c5-4426d147f38c.pdf"},{"id":67499412,"identity":"5a03c5d2-1f89-444e-b41c-3d8b35c234e4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-10-25 16:42:53","extension":"docx","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":12350105,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Supplementarymaterial.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5315257/v1/730ae462f466c9ee6731f154.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Hydrophilic and strength-softening characteristics of clay-rich rocks","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Clay-rich rocks, Water absorption tests, Strength softening, Clay minerals, Weight coefficients","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5315257/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5315257/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eTo better understand the mechanism of the strength weakening process of clay-rich rocks after interacting with water, the relationship between mineral composition, microscopic pore structure and gaseous water adsorption characteristics of clay-rich rocks was comprehensively analyzed by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mercury injection test. The results show a positive correlation between water absorption and both clay minerals and montmorillonite (MMT) content. The more complex the microporous structure is, the more pores in the diameter of 0.2\u0026thinsp;~\u0026thinsp;2\u0026micro;m accumulated, and the worse the water absorption capacity obtained. The innovation of this study lies in quantitatively calculating the weight coefficients of influencing factors, highlighting the contribution of pore structure and hydrophilic mineral composition to the strength of clay-rich rocks samples after water absorption, which was not covered in previous studies. The results show that the weight coefficients are fractal dimension of pores, effective porosity and clay mineral content in order. The clay minerals content is negatively correlated with the strength of the clay rocks after water absorption, that is, the presence of MMT is the key influencing factor of strength softening in this study, and the paper concludes with the results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to illustrate more intuitively the effect of hydrated MMT on strength. The research results provide a new insight to better understand the strength softening caused by water sensitivity of clay-rich rocks and to establish the correlation between the macroscopic mechanical behavior and the micromechanical mechanism.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Hydrophilic and strength-softening characteristics of clay-rich rocks","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-10-25 16:42:48","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5315257/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"c68e7fc0-61c7-473a-88c9-b23d334b0136","owner":[],"postedDate":"October 25th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-07-18T03:23:31+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-10-25 16:42:48","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-5315257","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-5315257","identity":"rs-5315257","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}