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Evaluation Methodology of Brittleness of Rock Based on Post-Peak Stress–Strain Curves

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Abstract

Brittleness is an important characteristic of rocks, for it has a strong influence on the failure process no matter from perspective of facilitating rock breakage or controlling rock failure when rocks are being loaded. Various brittleness criteria have been proposed to describe rock brittleness. In this paper, the existing brittle indices are summarised and then analysed in terms of their applicability to describe rock brittleness. The analysis demonstrates that the widely used strength ratio or product (σ c/σ t, σ c·σ t) of rocks cannot describe rock brittleness properly and that most of the indices neglect the impact of the rock’s stress state on its brittleness. A new evaluation method that includes the degree of brittleness (B d) and brittle failure intensity (B f) is proposed based on the magnitude and velocity of the post-peak stress drop, which can be easily obtained from the conventional uniaxial and triaxial compression tests. The two indices can accurately account for the influence of the confining pressure on brittleness, and the applicability of the new evaluation method is verified by different experiments. The relationship between B d and B f is also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

Financial supports from The National Program on Key Basic Research Project of China under Grant No. 2014CB046902, and from the National Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 51279201 and 41172288 are gratefully acknowledged. The work in this paper was also supported by an important project (for youth talent) of the knowledge innovation project of CAS (No. KZCX2-EW-QN115).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Fanzhen Meng, Hui Zhou, Chuanqing Zhang, Rongchao Xu & Jingjing Lu

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  1. Fanzhen Meng
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  2. Hui Zhou
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  3. Chuanqing Zhang
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  4. Rongchao Xu
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Correspondence to Hui Zhou.

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Meng, F., Zhou, H., Zhang, C. et al. Evaluation Methodology of Brittleness of Rock Based on Post-Peak Stress–Strain Curves. Rock Mech Rock Eng 48, 1787–1805 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-014-0694-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-014-0694-6

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