Impact of Temperature on the Hygroscopic Behavior and Mechanical Properties of Expansive Mudstone

Aiming at the large-scale nonlinear deformation of the roadway in Liangjia Coal Mine, Shandong Province, the mudstone of the 1602 working face is taken as the research object. A high-precision mudstone weathering test system integrating monitoring and control was developed, and the weathering tests of expanded mudstone were carried out at 10 °C, 20 °C, 30 °C and 40 °C. The results show that the hygroscopic curves of expanded mudstone demonstrate a nonlinear growth trend at different temperatures, and the influence of temperature on the hygroscopic curves is less than 20%. From the overall law, it can be roughly divided into three stages: the strong hygroscopic stage, the hygroscopic deceleration stage and the stable hygroscopic stage. The maximum expansion rates of the samples were 4.1%, 5.3%, 6.2% and 6.8%, respectively, and the water content and expansion rates corresponding to different ambient temperature and humidity were generally “concave”. The mechanical tests show that the mechanical properties of mudstone decrease as the ambient temperature increases, and the corresponding compressive strength decreases by 16~50%. The linear degradation is obvious, and the gradual expansion of peak strain indicates that the plasticity of the rock increases and the elastic modulus decreases linearly.