Dilatant hardening of fluid-saturated sandstone

The presence of pore fluid in rock affects both the elastic and inelastic deformation processes, yet laboratory testing is typically performed on dry material even though in situ the rock is often saturated. Techniques were developed for testing fluid-saturated porous rock under the limiting conditions of drained, undrained, and unjacketed response. Confined compression experiments, both conventional triaxial and plane strain, were performed on water-saturated Berea sandstone to investigate poroelastic and inelastic behavior. Measured drained response was used to calibrate an elasto-plastic constitutive model that predicts undrained inelastic deformation. The experimental data show good agreement with the model: dilatant hardening in undrained triaxial and plane strain compression tests under constant mean stress was predicted and observed.