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Variability of crack initiation and crack damage for various rock types

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Arabian Journal of Geosciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The failure process of rocks can section the stress-strain relation to several stages from crack closure to crack propagation. Two important threshold stresses can be identified, which are normally referred to as crack initiation stress (CI) and crack damage stress (CD). The effects of rock type, grain size, porosity, and confinement on these two stresses are investigated in this study by statistically analyzing 926 sets of test data which are collected from previously published compressive tests. The CI and CD to peak strength ratios are found to be in a narrow range for various rock types in terms of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary, indicating that the ratios of the two stress against the peak strength are not greatly influenced by the rock type. The CI and CD decrease as the grain size increases for igneous rocks in uniaxial compression. The two threshold stresses for low porosity igneous rocks are not significantly affected by porosity. However, the two stresses show an obvious decreasing trend with the increase in the porosity for high porosity sedimentary rocks. The CI to peak strength ratio in confined condition is much higher than that in unconfined condition. In addition, the ratio under confinement higher than 50 MPa is much increased when compared to that under confinement lower than 50 MPa. The results imply that the confining stress constrains the microcracking process. Overall, the CI and CD to peak strength ratios are both in a narrow range, which may be used as an intrinsic property of rocks to evaluate the damage/failure behavior of rocks in physical laboratory test and estimate the spalling strength of rock mass in underground openings.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for these financial supports

Funding

The research work presented in this paper is in part supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 51609178, 51579189, and 41772305), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant no. 2015M582273), the Nature Science Foundation of Hubei Province (Grant no. 2018CFB593), and the Open-end Research Fund of the State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics and Deep Underground Engineering (Grant no. SKLGDUEK1709)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Jun Peng, Guan Rong & Maiyong Jiang

  2. State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics and Deep Underground Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221008, China

    Jun Peng

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  1. Jun Peng
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  2. Guan Rong
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  3. Maiyong Jiang
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Correspondence to Maiyong Jiang.

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Peng, J., Rong, G. & Jiang, M. Variability of crack initiation and crack damage for various rock types. Arab J Geosci 11, 265 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-018-3618-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-018-3618-z

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