Water has a significant effect on the mechanical behavior of rocks. A deep understanding of how water can affect the short- and long-term mechanical behavior of rock is important when assessing the stability of geotechnical projects. This study mainly focused on the effects of different soaking heights and water distributions on the short- and long-term mechanical behavior of rocks. Uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) testing and creep experiments were carried out on specimens with different water contents. The specimens of each water content were obtained by partial presoaking in water at different heights (i.e., 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 of the height of the specimen) for 10 h and complete presoaking in water for different durations (i.e., 0.16, 0.29 and 0.97 h). The uniaxial compressive testing results show that the UCS and elastic modulus of the completely presoaked specimens exponentially decreased with increasing water content, while those of the partially presoaked specimens linearly decreased in two stages. At the same water contents, the UCS and elastic modulus of the partially presoaked specimens were lower than those of the completely presoaked specimens. In addition, the completely presoaked specimens showed mixed splitting-shear failure, while the partially presoaked specimens mainly exhibited splitting failure, which was attributed to the different water distributions in those two types of specimens. Our creep experiments show that as the water content increased, the time-to-failure decreased, while the minimum strain rate increased for both the partially and completely presoaked specimens. In addition, the time-to-failure and the duration of the accelerated creep stage of the partially presoaked specimens were both shorter than those of the completely presoaked specimens with the same water contents.

水对岩石的机械性能具有重要影响。在评估岩土工程的稳定性时，深入了解水如何影响岩石的短期和长期力学性能非常重要。这项研究主要集中于不同的浸泡高度和水分布对岩石的短期和长期力学行为的影响。在不同含水量的样品上进行了单轴抗压强度（UCS）测试和蠕变实验。通过在不同高度（即样品高度的1 / 8、1 / 4和1/2）中部分预浸10 h，然后在不同时间段内完全浸在水中（即， ，0.16、0.29和0.97小时）。单轴压缩试验结果表明，完全预浸泡的试样的UCS和弹性模量随含水量的增加呈指数下降，而部分预浸泡的试样的UCS和弹性模量在两个阶段呈线性下降。在相同的含水量下，部分预浸样品的UCS和弹性模量低于完全预浸样品的UCS和弹性模量。另外，完全预浸的试样表现出混合的剪切-剪切破坏，而部分预浸的试样主要表现出分裂-破坏，这归因于这两种类型的试样中不同的水分布。我们的蠕变实验表明，随着含水量的增加，失效时间缩短，而部分和完全预浸试样的最小应变率增加。