Reply to Discussion by Li and Wong on 'Predicting the Uniaxial Compressive and Tensile Strengths of Gypsum Rock by Point Load Testing' by Heidari et al., Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering (2012) 45:265-273

摘要

It is clearly stated in the paper that 40 block samples from gypsum rock were collected and cored. Then 90 cores (perpendicular to stratification) and irregular specimens were prepared from gypsum rock for point load tests (PLT) (for different types of PLT in both air-dried and saturated states). Also 60 cores were prepared for UCS and Brazilian tests (in air-dried and saturated states). 15 specimens (in the paper, "specimen" and "sample" have the same meaning) were numbered randomly from G_1 to G_15 for each test. It seems that Li and Wong assumed the number presented in each row of Tables 1 and 2 to have been obtained from the same rock block. In other words, different core samples were prepared from different blocks of gypsum rock.