Abstract
Brittleness is an important rock material property, and its accurate evaluation has guiding significance in construction as well as in disaster prevention and reduction. Considering the limitations of the existing brittleness indices, a new brittleness index based on the overall stress–strain process of a rock mass is established that considers both the stress growth rate between the peak stress and the crack initiation stress before the peak, as well as the stress descent rate after the peak. Uniaxial and triaxial compression tests were conducted to evaluate the new index. The results of the tests show that the new index can accurately determine the rock brittleness according to the prepeak stress–strain curve under uniaxial loading system conditions, which compensates for the limitation of inaccurate postpeak curves for brittle rock. Under triaxial compression conditions, the new index more clearly represents the influence of the confining pressure on the brittleness of marble. The reliability and comprehensiveness of the new index are verified, and these research results may improve the existing evaluation of rock brittleness.
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Abbreviations
- B :
-
Brittleness index
- σ 1 :
-
Major principal stress
- σ 3 :
-
Minor principal stress
- σ c :
-
Uniaxial compressive strength
- σ t :
-
Splitting tensile strength
- σ i :
-
Crack initiation stress
- τ p :
-
Peak compressive strength
- τ r :
-
Residual compressive strength
- ε p :
-
Peak strain
- ε r :
-
Residual strain
- ε :
-
Axial strain
- \( {\varepsilon}_c^p \) :
-
Plastic strain necessary for cohesion loss
- \( {\varepsilon}_f^p \) :
-
Plastic strain necessary for frictional strengthening
- W r :
-
Recoverable strain energy
- W :
-
Total strain energy
- E :
-
Elasticity modulus of prepeak
- ν :
-
Poisson’s ratio
- M :
-
Elasticity modulus of postpeak
- k ac :
-
Stress slope of postpeak
- φ :
-
Internal friction angle
- RTRI :
-
Rock tenacity rating index
- S F :
-
Stiffness factor
- G F :
-
Texture factor
- F F :
-
Foliation factor
- H μ :
-
Microhardness of rock
- H :
-
Macrohardness of rock
- K IC :
-
Fracture toughness
- S 20 :
-
Proportion of detritus whose particle size is smaller than 11.2mm
- q :
-
Proportion of detritus whose particle size is smaller than 0.6mm
- F max :
-
Maximum impact load
- P :
-
Penetration depth
- P dec :
-
Increment load
- P inc :
-
Attenuation load
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC1501301) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 41521002 and 41572283). This work is also supported by the Funding of Science and Technology Office of Sichuan Province (grant no. 2017TD0018) and the research fund of the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection (no. SKLGP2018Z011).
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Chen, G., Jiang, W., Sun, X. et al. Quantitative evaluation of rock brittleness based on crack initiation stress and complete stress–strain curves. Bull Eng Geol Environ 78, 5919–5936 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-019-01486-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-019-01486-2