• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.535-547
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• 2022

Failure patterns of rock specimens represent valuable information about the mechanical properties and crack evolution mechanism of rock. Several kinds of research have been conducted regarding the failure mechanism of brittle material, however; the influence of brittleness on the failure mechanism of rock specimens has not been precisely considered. In the present study, experimental and numerical examinations have been made to evaluate the physical and mechanical phenomena associated with rock failure mechanisms through the uniaxial compression test. In the experimental part, Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) tests equipped with Acoustic Emission (AE) have been conducted on rock samples with three different brittleness. Then, the numerical models have been calibrated based on experimental test results for further investigation and comparing the micro-cracking process in experimental and numerical models. It can be perceived that the failure mode of specimens with high brittleness is tensile axial splitting, based on the experimental evidence of rock specimens with different brittleness. Also, the crack growth mechanism of the rock specimens with various brittleness using discrete element modeling in the numerical part suggested that the specimens with more brittleness contain more tensile fracture during the loading sequences.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.431-446
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• 2017

Rock bridges in rock masses would increase the bearing capacity of Non-persistent discontinuities. In this paper the effect of ratio of rock bridge surface to joint surface, rock bridge shape and normal load on failure behaviour of intermittent rock joint were investigated. A total of 42 various models with dimensions of $15cm{\times}15cm{\times}15cm$ of plaster specimens were fabricated simulating the open joints possessing rock bridge. The introduced rock bridges have various continuities in shear surface. The area of the rock bridge was $45cm^2$ and $90cm^2$ out of the total fixed area of $225cm^2$ respectively. The fabricated specimens were subjected to shear tests under normal loads of 0.5 MPa, 2 MPa and 4 MPa in order to investigate the shear mechanism of rock bridge. The results indicated that the failure pattern and the failure mechanism were affected by two parameters; i.e., the ratio of joint surface to rock bridge surface and normal load. So that increasing in joint area in front of the rock bridge changes the shear failure mode to tensile failure mode. Also the tensile failure change to shear failure by increasing the normal load.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.977-995
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• 2017

It is well accepted that rock failure mechanism influence the cutting efficiency and determination of optimum cutting parameters. In this paper, an attempt was made to research the factors that affect the failure mechanism based on discrete element method (DEM). The influences of cutting depth, hydrostatic pressure, cutting velocity, back rake angle and joint set on failure mechanism in rock-cutting are researched by PFC2D. The results show that: the ductile failure occurs at shallow cutting depths, the brittle failure occurs as the depth of cut increases beyond a threshold value. The mean cutting forces have a linear related to the cutting depth if the cutting action is dominated by the ductile mode, however, the mean cutting forces are deviate from the linear relationship while the cutting action is dominated by the brittle mode. The failure mechanism changes from brittle mode with larger chips under atmospheric conditions, to ductile mode with crushed chips under hydrostatic conditions. As the cutting velocity increases, a grow number of micro-cracks are initiated around the cutter and the volume of the chipped fragmentation is decreasing correspondingly. The crack initiates and propagates parallel to the free surface with a smaller rake angle, but with the rake angle increases, the direction of crack initiation and propagation is changed to towards the intact rock. The existence of joint set have significant influence on crack initiation and propagation, it makes the crack prone to propagate along the joint.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.867-877
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• 2016

Collapse shape of tunnel roof in layered Hoek-Brown rock media is investigated within the framework of upper bound theorem. The traditional collapse mechanism for homogeneous stratum is no longer suitable for the present analysis of roof stability, and it would be necessary to propose a curve failure mode to describe the velocity discontinuity surface in layered media. What is discussed in the paper is that the failure mechanism of tunnel roofs, consisting of two different functions, is proposed for layered rock media. Then it is employed to investigate the impending roof failure. Based on the nonlinear Hoek-Brown failure criterion, the collapse volume of roof blocks are derived with the upper bound theorem and variational principle. Numerical calculations and parametric analysis are carried out to illustrate the effects of different parameters on the shape of failure mechanism, which is of overriding significance to the stability analysis of tunnel roof in layered rock media.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.375-401
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• 2014

It is generally accepted that material heterogeneity has a great influence on the deformation, strength, damage and failure modes of rock. This paper presents numerical simulation on rock failure process based on the characterization of rock heterogeneity by using a digital image processing (DIP) technique. The actual heterogeneity of rock at mesoscopic scale (characterized as minerals) is retrieved by using a vectorization transformation method based on the digital image of rock surface, and it is imported into a well-established numerical code Rock Failure Process Analysis (RFPA), in order to examine the effect of rock heterogeneity on the rock failure process. In this regard, the numerical model of rock could be built based on the actual characterization of the heterogeneity of rock at the meso-scale. Then, the images of granite are taken as an example to illustrate the implementation of DIP technique in simulating the rock failure process. Three numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the impact of actual rock heterogeneity due to spatial distribution of constituent mineral grains (e.g., feldspar, quartz and mica) on the macro-scale mechanical response, and the associated rock failure mechanism at the meso-scale level is clarified. The numerical results indicate that the shape and distribution of constituent mineral grains have a pronounced impact on stress distribution and concentration, which may further control the failure process of granite. The proposed method provides an efficient tool for studying the mechanical behaviors of heterogeneous rock and rock-like materials whose failure processes are strongly influenced by material heterogeneity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.63-77
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• 2017

The failure mechanism of a deep hard rock tunnel under high geostress and high geothermalactivity is extremely complex. Uniaxial compression tests of granite at different temperatures were conducted. The complete stress-strain curves, mechanical parameters and macroscopic failure types of the rock were analyzed in detail. The brittleness index, which represents the possibility of a severe brittleness hazard, is proposed in this paperby comparing the peak stress and the expansion stress. The results show that the temperature range from 20 to $60^{\circ}C$ is able to aggravate the brittle failure of hard rock based on the brittleness index. The closure of internal micro cracks by thermal stress can improve the strength of hard rock and the storage capacity of elastic strain energy. The failure mode ofthe samples changes from shear failure to tensile failure as the temperature increases. In conclusion, the brittle failure mechanism of hard rock under the action of thermal coupling is revealed, and the analysis result offers significant guidance for deep buried tunnels at high temperatures and under high geostress.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Rock Mechanics Conference
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• 2011.09a
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• pp.3-21
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• 2011

Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations using Particle Flow Code (PFC2D) were performed to study the effects of joint separation and joint overlapping on the full failure behavior of rock bridges under direct shear loading. Through numerical direct shear tests, the failure process is visually observed and the failure patterns are achieved with reasonable conformity with the experimental results. The simulation results clearly showed that cracks developed during the test were predominantly tension cracks. It was deduced that the failure pattern was mostly influenced by both of the joint separation and joint overlapping while the shear strength is closely related to the failure pattern and its failure mechanism. The studies revealed that shear strength of rock bridges are increased with increasing in the joint separation. Also, it was observed that for a fixed cross sectional area of rock bridges, shear strength of overlapped joints are less than the shear strength of non-overlapped joints.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 1997

Residual shear strength should be taken into consideration as well as peak one when analysing stability of slopes constituted by weathered rock or overconsolidated soils since such materials could be subjected to progressive failure mechanism. When landslide of a slope is related to progressive failure phenomenon, the failure might occur even though shear strength of the slope materials does not reach their residual shear strength over the whole slip surface. Therefore, stability of the slope concerned may be overstimated or underestimated when using only its peak or residual shear srength parameters. Mechanical description for progressive failure phenomenon is given by Bjerrum(1967). In parameters. Mechanical description for progressive failure phenomenon is given by Bjerrum(1967). In this study, his theory has been extended to estimate the distance of failed zone for a plane slope and the results calculated by this extended equatio has been compared with that obtained by numerical modelling using FLAC. In addition, stress state on the slip surface has been, in detail, analysed to understand failure mechanism when a limited progressive failure occurs. Effects of mechanical and hydraulic factors on progressive failure have also been analysed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.535-570
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• 2017

There are only few cases where cause and location of failure of a rock structure are limited to a single discontinuity. Usually several discontinuities of limited size interact and eventually form a combined shear plane where failure takes place. So, besides the discontinuities, the regions between adjacent discontinuities, which consist of strong rock and are called material or rock bridges, are of utmost importance for the shear strength of the compound failure plane. Shear behaviour of persistent and non-persistent joint are different from each other. Shear strength of rock mass containing non-persistent joints is highly affected by mechanical behavior and geometrical configuration of non-persistent joints located in a rock mass. Therefore investigation is essential to study the fundamental failures occurring in a rock bridge, for assessing anticipated and actual performances of the structures built on or in rock masses. The purpose of this review paper is to present techniques, progresses and the likely future development directions in experimental testing of non-persistent joint failure behaviour. Experimental results showed that the presence of rock bridges in not fully persistent natural discontinuity sets is a significant factor affecting the stability of rock structures. Compared with intact rocks, jointed rock masses are usually weaker, more deformable and highly anisotropic, depending upon the mechanical properties of each joint and the explicit joint positions. The joint spacing, joint persistency, number of rock joint, angle of rock joint, length of rock bridge, angle of rock bridge, normal load, scale effect and material mixture have important effect on the failure mechanism of a rock bridge.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.3
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• pp.407-423
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• 2020

The pre-peak cyclic shear mechanism of two-order asperity degradation of rock joints in the direct shear tests with static constant normal loads (CNL) are investigated using experimental and numerical methods. The laboratory testing rock specimens contains the idealized and regular two-order triangular-shaped asperities, which represent the specific geometrical conditions of natural and irregular waviness and unevenness of rock joint surfaces, in the pre-peak cyclic shear tests. Three different shear failure patterns of two-order triangular-shaped rock joints can be found in the experiments at constant horizontal shear velocity and various static constant normal loads in the direct and pre-peak cyclic shear tests. The discrete element method is adopted to simulate the pre-peak shear failure behaviors of rock joints with two-order triangular-shaped asperities. The rock joint interfaces are simulated using a modified smooth joint model, where microscopic scale slip surfaces are applied at contacts between discrete particles in the upper and lower rock blocks. Comparing the discrete numerical results with the experimental results, the microscopic bond particle model parameters are calibrated. Effects of cyclic shear loading amplitude, static constant normal loads and initial waviness asperity angles on the pre-peak cyclic shear failure behaviors of triangular-shaped rock joints are also numerically investigated.