Abstract
Underground chambers and tunnels in different strata have different failure modes. In practice, stability evaluation of underground engineering should consider the surrounding rock creep properties. In this research, uniaxial and triaxial creep tests are performed to explore the mechanical and fracture behaviors of mudstone, sandstone, and limestone. The experimental results show that the fissure angle (α) has a great effect on the long-term strength (LTS) of sandstone and limestone, and their minimum values are observed when α = 75° and 45°, which are 26.7% and 25% lower than those of the corresponding intact samples, respectively. However, the fluctuation in the LTS of mudstone is less than 5.2%. The steady creep strain rate of fissured mudstone does not increase as significantly as that of sandstone and limestone, which increase more than 6 times when the deviatoric stress exceeds the LTS. As α increases, the failure modes of mudstone and sandstone change from mixed failure to tensile failure when α = 75°, and limestone samples mainly exhibit tensile failure. Limestone and sandstone are prone to shear failure under confining pressure and have higher degrees of internal crack development than mudstone. The dissipated energy of limestone is higher than that of sandstone and mudstone. A high dissipated energy ratio is closely related to a low LTS and tensile failure. Due to the small variation in the LTS of fissured mudstone, using LTS to judge stability is effective. For sandstone and limestone, the sudden increase in the steady creep strain rate can be an indicator for evaluating stability.
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This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41772299, 51279096).
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Wang, B., Li, T., Li, C. et al. Study on the creep properties and fracture behavior of three different rock types with a single preexisting fissure. Bull Eng Geol Environ 82, 255 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-023-03283-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-023-03283-4