A Criterion for Brittle Failure of Rocks Using the Theory of Critical Distances

This paper presents a new analytical criterion for brittle failure of rocks and heavily overconsolidated soils. Griffith’s model of a randomly oriented defect under a biaxial stress state is used to keep the criterion simple. The Griffith’s criterion is improved because the maximum tensile strength is not evaluated at the boundary of the defect but at a certain distance from the boundary, known as the critical distance. This fracture criterion is known as the Point Method, and is part of the Theory of Critical Distances, which is utilized in fracture mechanics. The proposed failure criterion has two parameters: the inherent tensile strength, ó0, and the ratio of the half-length of the initial crack/flaw to the critical distance, a/L. These parameters are difficult to measure but they may be correlated with the uniaxial compressive and tensile strengths, óc and ót. The proposed criterion is able to reproduce the common range of strength ratios for rocks and heavily overconsolidated soils (óc/ót=3-50) and the influence of several microstructural rock properties, such as texture and porosity. Good agreement with laboratory tests reported in the literature is found for tensile and low confining stresses.The work presented was initiated during a research project on “Structural integrity assessments of notch-type defects", for the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ref.: MAT2010-15721)

Experimental investigation on True Triaxial Deformation and Progressive Damage Behaviour of Sandstone

Abstract Studying the true triaxial deformation characteristics and progressive damage behavior of sandstone is of great significance for the stability control of roadways. Both the conventional triaxial test (CTT) and the true triaxial compression test (TTT) were conducted for sandstone to investigate its deformation characteristics and the variation laws of volume strain during the progressive damage process under different confining pressures. The conducted experiments showed that both the axial and lateral strains of the rock prior to failure under CTT conditions increased with increasing confining pressure. However, with increasing intermediate principal stress (σ 2) under TTT conditions, both the axial strain, and the lateral strain (ε 2) gradually decreased, and the lateral strain (ε 3, expansion) first slow down and then accelerated. Moreover, the anisotropic characteristics first gradually weakened and then enhanced. The variation of the volume strain increment and the volume strain rate of rock combined with the acoustic emission activity and a three-dimensional rock theoretical model with microcrack defects were analyzed in detail. During the stable crack growth stage III, the volume strain increment and volume strain rate increased with increasing confining pressure under CTT conditions, while they decrease after the initial increase with increasing σ 2 under TTT conditions. During the unstable crack growth stage IV, the volume strain increment increased sharply, while the volume strain rate gradually slowed down with increasing confining pressure under CTT conditions. The internal cracks of the rock were gradually suppressed and the lateral expansion was gradually constrained. The volume strain increment first increased followed by a decrease, and the volume strain rate gradually slowed down after a noticeable acceleration with increasing σ 2 under TTT conditions. The internal micro-cracks gradually evolved from inhibition (in the planes parallel to plane 1–2 and plane 2–3) to accelerated expansion (the planes along the σ 2 direction), and the lateral deformation first weakened and then strengthened