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A potential stress indicator for failure prediction of laboratory-scale rock samples

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Abstract

Based on the two-dimensional renormalization group model, which can consider the stress transfer mechanism, in the present paper, the theoretical quantitative correlation between the threshold of the crack damage stress (σ cd ) and the uniaxial compressive strength (σ ucs ) was constructed. The results indicate that the normalized quantity σ cd /σ ucs decreases as the shape parameter m increases, and that it gradually tends towards a constant horizontal asymptote that is ~0.82. In addition, the experimental results of σ cd /σ ucs obtained in previous studies using different rock types were analyzed. From this analysis, it was found that the overall average and the standard deviation of σ cd /σ ucs for low-porosity rock samples is ~0.80 (±0.10), which would appear to be approximately consistent with the theoretical solution. This preliminary study indicates that the normalized quantity σ cd /σ ucs might be an intrinsic property of low-porosity rocks and thus could be regarded as a potential indicator for the failure prediction of laboratory-scale rock samples.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41302233 and 41030750), the Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2012M520376), the Science Foundation of Key Laboratory of Engineering Geomechanics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KLEG201106) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant No. XDB10030302.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Lei Xue

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Xue, L. A potential stress indicator for failure prediction of laboratory-scale rock samples. Arab J Geosci 8, 3441–3449 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-014-1456-1

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