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Creep Behavior of Intact and Cracked Limestone Under Multi-Level Loading and Unloading Cycles

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Abstract

A series of triaxial creep tests were carried out on intact and cracked Maokou limestone specimens under multi-level loading and unloading cycles. A new data processing algorithm is proposed to analyze the experimental data and divide the total strain into instantaneous and creep strains, with the instantaneous strain consisting of instantaneous elastic and plastic strains and the creep strain consisting of viscoelastic and visco-plastic strains. The results show that the viscoelastic strain converges to a certain value with time, but the visco-plastic strain keeps increasing with time, although both tend to increase with higher deviatoric stress. The ratio of the visco-plastic strain to the total creep strain also tends to increase when the deviatoric stress is higher. The steady-state creep strain rate increases with higher deviatoric stress or lower confining pressure, and the relation between the steady-state creep strain rate and the deviatoric stress can be well described by an exponential expression. The results also show that the preexisting cracks in the limestone have a great effect on its creep properties. At the same confining pressure and deviatoric stress, the cracked limestone shows larger instantaneous and creep strains (especially visco-plastic strains), longer duration of primary creep, and a higher steady-state creep strain rate than the intact limestone.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51274097, 51434006, 51374104), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan province (No. 2015JJ2067), the Shanghai Thousand Talents Program, and the Open Projects of State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, CUMT (No. SKLCRSM16KF12).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Safe Mining Techniques of Coal Mines, Work Safety Key Laboratory on Prevention and Control of Gas and Roof Disasters for Southern Coal Mines, School of Resource, Environment and Safety Engineering, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan, 411201, Hunan, China

    Yanlin Zhao, Weijun Wang, Wen Wan, Shuqing Li & Wenhao Ma

  2. State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safety Mining, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221008, Jiangsu, China

    Yanlin Zhao

  3. Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Lianyang Zhang

  4. School of Civil Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China

    Yixian Wang

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  1. Yanlin Zhao
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  2. Lianyang Zhang
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  3. Weijun Wang
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  4. Wen Wan
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Correspondence to Lianyang Zhang.

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Zhao, Y., Zhang, L., Wang, W. et al. Creep Behavior of Intact and Cracked Limestone Under Multi-Level Loading and Unloading Cycles. Rock Mech Rock Eng 50, 1409–1424 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1187-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1187-1

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