A suite of laboratory testing was performed on Gosford sandstone samples having a range of sizes, including point-load and uniaxial compressive tests. A unified size-effect law (USEL), based on the work by Zdenek Bazant, involving fracture energy as well as fractal theories, was introduced. It was shown that USEL correlates well with the ascending and descending uniaxial compressive strength trends obtained from Gosford sandstone as well as five other rock types reported by Brian Hawkins. Fractal characteristics found to be the primary mechanism for ascending strength trends and surface flaws could be considered as a secondary mechanism. The influence of the contact area on the size-effect behavior of point-load results was investigated using a new approach. This approach was novel in the way it incorporated the load contact area. Determination of the point-load strength index using this new approach led to opposite size-effect trends compared with those observed using a conventional point-load s...

Understanding the mechanical properties of shaly sandstone is of great importance in reservoir geomechanics. Because of the lack of core data, measurements based on acoustic wave velocities are often conducted. In such measurements, the mechanical properties such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and Young’s modulus ($E$ ) are related to the porosity of sandstone and shaly sandstone. However, in many instances, the porosity fails to directly correlate to mechanical properties especially when dispersed clays are present. Therefore, in this study, a set of uniaxial compressive tests on a number of different shaly sandstones was performed. The X-ray computed tomography was conducted on the representative samples from each type of sandstone to assess the porosity, rock composition, and texture. Independent compositional analysis was also carried out on all representative samples to link the samples’ composition to their microstructure. Interestingly, it was found that the mechanical properties of these shaly sandstones are well-correlated to the combined clay volume and effective porosity in a multivariate analysis. It was concluded that the univariate analysis solely performed on porosity cannot always correlate well to the mechanical properties of sandstone containing clays. Therefore, a combination of clay volume and effective porosity is more accurately correlated to mechanical properties.