Empirical correlation of physical and mechanical properties of marly rocks with P wave velocity

The geomechanical strength of rock mass plays a key role in planning and design of mining and civil construction projects. The main aim of this study was to develop empirical relations between P wave velocity and physical and mechanical properties such as slake durability index (SDI), uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), modulus of elasticity (E), porosity, water absorption, and density for marly rocks extracted from the southwest Iran. Determination of geomechanical properties in the field as well as laboratory is a time consuming, tedious, and costly process. In this study, an attempt was made to determine these index properties in the laboratory and then each index property was correlated with P wave velocity values. Empirical equations were developed using P wave velocity values to predict SDI, UCS, modulus of elasticity (E), porosity, water absorption, and density where the results were in good agreement. To examine the sensitivity of empirical relationships, Student's t test was performed to verify the correlation between P wave velocity values and other rock index properties.