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Fractures: Tension and Shear

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Abstract

The paper applies the observation cycle to rock fracturing processes. Specifically, it repeats the observation cycle by going from the large (field) scale to increasingly detailed laboratory scales. With this, it is possible to determine that what appear to be tensile or shear fractures on the large scale are produced through a combination of tensile and shear mechanisms on the smaller scale. This involves observations with a variety of techniques that are briefly described. What is also emphasized is that observation has to go hand in hand with abstraction, i.e., modeling to help understand the observed phenomena. The paper, therefore, makes two contributions—a better understanding of rock fracturing processes and showing the importance of the observation cycle in a scientific process.

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Abbreviations

εv :

Volumetric strain

ε1 :

Major principal strain

ε3 :

Minor principal strain

γ:

Shear strain

σn :

Normal stress

τ:

Shear stress

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Acknowledgements

The research was conducted by many students, postdoctoral fellows and involved collaboration with colleagues. Their names are shown in Fig. 1. The author would also like to thank the organizers of the 2019 ARMA Symposium and MTS for the invitation to present this keynote lecture.

Funding

The research underlying the presented work was funded by a variety of sponsors over the past 2 decades. The author received an honorarium by MTS to present the keynote lecture at the 2019 ARMA Symposium.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

    Herbert H. Einstein

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  1. Herbert H. Einstein
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Correspondence to Herbert H. Einstein.

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Einstein, H.H. Fractures: Tension and Shear. Rock Mech Rock Eng 54, 3389–3408 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-020-02243-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-020-02243-8

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