An analytical model for stresses induced by pore-water pressures in porous rock slabs

Resumo

A well-known issue of marble slabs casted in building fac ̧ades is the phenomenon of bowing, which
may cause damage to constructions all over the world. Laboratory studies have shown that some kinds of marble
subjected to temperature oscillations suffer from non-uniform and permanent expansion, and that this problem is

exacerbated in saturated environment. The understanding of this pathology is still incomplete, despite its impor-
tance for civil construction, in order to prevent or even avoid this issue. In the formulation developed herein, heat

transfer problem is modeled by sol-air formulation, in order to linearize irradiation transfer and convective transfer.
The fully linearized problem is then solved by trigonometric series specially developed for time-periodic problems
in order to represent the daily cycles of heating and cooling. The analytical solution developed is compared to a
formulation previously developed by one of the authors of this work (Ito), extended to saturated environment under
undrained conditions. The result of this study is a contribution to the understanding of bowing and demonstrates
that the development of pore pressures in undrained conditions can accelerate the degradation of marble.