• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.2
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• pp.221-230
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• 2019

In this paper, shear behavior of non-persistent joint surrounded in concrete and gypsum layers has been investigated using experimental test and numerical simulation. Two types of mixture were prepared for this study. The first type consists of water and gypsum that were mixed with a ratio of water/gypsum of 0.6. The second type of mixture, water, sand and cement were mixed with a ratio of 27%, 33% and 40% by weight. Shear behavior of a non-persistent joint embedded in these specimens is studied. Physical models consisting of two edge concrete layers with dimensions of 160 mm by 130 mm by 60 mm and one internal gypsum layer with the dimension of 16 mm by 13 mm by 6 mm were made. Two horizontal edge joints were embedded in concrete beams and one angled joint was created in gypsum layer. Several analyses with joints with angles of $0^{\circ}$, $30^{\circ}$, and $60^{\circ}$ degree were conducted. The central fault places in 3 different positions. Along the edge joints, 1.5 cm vertically far from the edge joint face and 3 cm vertically far from the edge joint face. All samples were tested in compression using a universal loading machine and the shear load was induced because of the specimen geometry. Concurrent with the experiments, the extended finite element method (XFEM) was employed to analyze the fracture processes occurring in a non-persistent joint embedded in concrete and gypsum layers using Abaqus, a finite element software platform. The failure pattern of non-persistent cracks (faults) was found to be affected mostly by the central crack and its configuration and the shear strength was found to be related to the failure pattern. Comparison between experimental and corresponding numerical results showed a great agreement. XFEM was found as a capable tool for investigating the fracturing mechanism of rock specimens with non-persistent joint.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.471-478
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• 2021

Water damage is one of the five disasters that affect the safety of coal mine production. The erosion of rocks by water is a very important link in the process of water inrush induced by fault activation. Through the observation and experiment of fault filling samples, according to the existing rock classification standards, fault sediments are divided into breccia, dynamic metamorphic schist and mudstone. Similar materials are developed with the characteristics of particle size distribution, cementation strength and water rationality, and then relevant tests and analyses are carried out. The experimental results show that the water-rock interaction mainly reduces the compressive strength, mechanical strength, cohesion and friction Angle of similar materials, and cracks or deformations are easy to occur under uniaxial load, which may be an important process of water inrush induced by fault activation. Mechanical experiment of similar material specimen can not only save time and cost of large scale experiment, but also master the direction and method of the experiment. The research provides a new idea for the failure process of rock structure in fault activation water inrush.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.57-61
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• 2022

One of the major applications of REBCO coated conductor (CC) tapes is in superconducting magnets or coils that are designed for high magnet fields. For such applications, the CC tapes were exposed to a high level of stresses which includes uniaxial tensile or transverse compressive stresses resulting from a large magnetic field. Thus, CC tapes should endure such mechanical load or deformation that can influence their electromechanical performance during manufacturing, cool-down, and operation. It has been reported that the main cause of critical current (I_c) degradation in CC tapes utilized in coil windings for superconducting magnets was the delamination due to transversely applied stresses. In most high-magnetic-field applications, the operating limits of the CC tapes will likely be imposed by the electromechanical properties together with its I_c dependence on temperature and magnetic field. In this study, we examined the influence of the transverse compressive stress on the I_c degradation behaviors in various commercially available CC tapes which is important for magnet design Four differently processed REBCO CC tapes were adopted to examine their I_c degradation behaviors under transverse compression using an anvil test method and a newly developed instantaneous I_c measurement system. As a result, all REBCO CC tapes adopted showed robustness against transverse compressive stresses for REBCO coils, notably at transverse compressive stresses until 250 MPa. When the applied stress further increased, different Ic degradation behaviors were observed depending on the sample. Among them, the one that was fabricated by the IBAD/MOCVD process showed the highest compressive stress tolerance.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.31-45
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• 2022

Experimental and numerical simulation were used to investigate the effects of angle and number of T shape non-persistent crack on the shear behaviour of crack's bridge area under uniaxial compressive test. concrete samples with dimension of 150 mm×150 mm×40 mm were prepared. Within the specimen, T shape non-persistent notches were provided. 16 different configuration systems were prepared for T shape non-persistent crack based on two and three cracks. In these configurations, the length of cracks were taken as 4 cm and 2 cm based on the cracks configuration systems. The angle of larger crack related to horizontal axis was 0°, 30°, 60° and 90°. Similar to cracks configuration systems in the experimental tests, 28 models with different T shape non-persistent crack angle were prepared in numerical model. The length of cracks were taken as 4 cm and 2 cm based on the cracks configuration systems. The angle of larger crack related to horizontal axis was 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75° and 90°. Tensile strength of concrete was 1 MPa. The axial load was applied to the model. Displacement loading rate was controlled to 0.005 mm/s. Results indicated that the failure process was significantly controled by the T shape non-persistent crack angle and crack number. The compressive strengths of the specimens were related to the fracture pattern and failure mechanism of the discontinuities. Furthermore, it was shown that the compressive behaviour of discontinuities is related to the number of the induced tensile cracks which are increased by increasing the crack number and crack angle. The strength of samples decreased by increasing the crack number. In addition, the failure pattern and failure strength are similar in both methods i.e. the experimental testing and the numerical simulation methods (PFC2D).

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.531-549
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• 2021

Analytical models were developed and seismic behaviors were analyzed for a three-story stone pagoda at the Cheollyongsa temple site, which was damaged by the Gyeongju earthquake of 2016. Both finite and discrete element modeling were used and the analysis results were compared to the actual earthquake damage. Vulnerable parts of stone pagoda structure were identified and their seismic behaviors via sliding, rocking, and risk analyses were verified. In finite and discrete element analyses, the 3F main body stone was displaced uniaxially by 60 and 80 mm, respectively, similar to the actual displacement of 90 mm resulting from the earthquake. Considering various input conditions such as uniaxial excitation and soil-structure interaction, as well as seismic components and the distance from the epicenter, both models yielded reasonable and applicable results. The Gyeongju earthquake exhibited extreme short-period characteristics; thus, short-period structures such as stone pagodas were seriously damaged. In addition, we found that sliding occurred in the upper parts because the vertical load was low, but rocking predominated in the lower parts because most structural members were slender. The third-floor main body and roof stones were particularly vulnerable because some damage occurred when the sliding and rocking limits were exceeded. Risk analysis revealed that the probability of collapse was minimal at 0.1 g, but exceeded 80% at above 0.3 g. The collapse risks at an earthquake peak ground acceleration of 0.154 g at the immediate occupancy, life safety, and collapse prevention levels were 90%, 52%, and 6% respectively. When the actual damage was compared with the risk analysis, the stone pagoda retained earthquake-resistant performance at the life safety level.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2023

This study explores a new energy partitioning approach to determine the fracture toughness of 3-D printed pristine/recycled high density polyethylene (HDPE) blends employing the essential work of fracture (EWF) concept. The traditional EWF approach conducts a uniaxial tensile test with double-edge notched tensile (DENT) specimens and measures the total energy defined by the area under a load-displacement curve until failure. The approach assumes that the entire total energy contributes to the fracture process only. This assumption is generally true for extruded polymers that fracture occurs in a material body. In contrast to the traditional extrusion manufacturing process, the current 3-D printing technique employs fused deposition modeling (FDM) that produces layer-by-layer structured specimens. This type of specimen tends to include separation energy even after the complete failure of specimens when the fracture test is conducted. The separation is not relevant to the fracture process, and the raw experimental data are likely to possess random variation or noise during fracture testing. Therefore, the current EWF approach may not be suitable for the fracture characterization of 3-D printed specimens. This paper proposed a new energy partitioning approach to exclude the irrelevant energy of the specimens caused by their intrinsic structural issues. The approach determined the energy partitioning location based on experimental data and observations. Results prove that the new approach provided more consistent results with a higher coefficient of correlation.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.697-726
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• 2023

Brittleness as an important property of rock plays a crucial role both in the failure process of intact rock and rock mass response to excavation in engineering geological and geotechnical projects. Generally, rock brittleness indices are calculated from the mechanical properties of rocks such as uniaxial compressive strength, tensile strength and modulus of elasticity. These properties are generally determined from complicated, expensive and time-consuming tests in laboratory. For this reason, in the present research, an attempt has been made to predict the rock brittleness indices from simple, inexpensive, and quick laboratory test results namely dry unit weight, porosity, slake-durability index, P-wave velocity, Schmidt rebound hardness, and point load strength index using multiple linear regression, exponential regression, support vector machine (SVM) with various kernels, generating fuzzy inference system, and regression tree ensemble (RTE) with boosting framework. So, this could be considered as an innovation for the present research. For this purpose, the number of 39 rock samples including five igneous, twenty-six sedimentary, and eight metamorphic were collected from different regions of Iran. Mineralogical, physical and mechanical properties as well as five well known rock brittleness indices (i.e., B₁, B₂, B₃, B₄, and B₅) were measured for the selected rock samples before application of the above-mentioned machine learning techniques. The performance of the developed models was evaluated based on several statistical metrics such as mean square error, relative absolute error, root relative absolute error, determination coefficients, variance account for, mean absolute percentage error and standard deviation of the error. The comparison of the obtained results revealed that among the studied methods, SVM is the most suitable one for predicting B₁, B₂ and B₅, while RTE predicts B₃ and B₄ better than other methods.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.213-222
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• 2024

Determination of jointed rock mass properties plays a significant role in the design and construction of underground structures such as tunneling and mining. Rock mass classification systems such as Rock Mass Rating (RMR), Rock Mass Index (RMi), Rock Mass Quality (Q), and deformation modulus (Em) are determined from the jointed rock masses. However, parameters of jointed rock masses can be affected by the tunnel depth below the surface due to the effect of the in situ stresses. In addition, the geomechanical properties of rocks change due to the effect of metamorphism. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to apply correlation analysis to investigate the relationships between rock mass properties and some parameters related to the depth of the tunnel studied. For this purpose, the field work consisted of determining rock mass parameters in a tunnel alignment (~7.1 km) at varying depths from 21 m to 431 m below ground surface. At the same excavation depths, thirty-seven rock types were also sampled and tested in the laboratory. Correlations were made between vertical stress and depth, horizontal/vertical stress ratio (k) and depth, k and Em, k and RMi, k and point load index (PLI), k and Brazilian tensile strength (BTS), Em and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), UCS and PLI, UCS and BTS. Relationships were significant (significance level=0.000) at the confidence interval of 95% (r = 0.77-0.88) between the data pairs for the rocks taken from depths greater than 166 m where the ratio of horizontal to vertical stress is between 0.6 and 1.2. The in-situ stress parameters affected rock mass properties as well as metamorphism which affected the geomechanical properties of rock materials by affecting the behavior of minerals and textures within rocks. This study revealed that in-situ stress parameters and metamorphism should be reviewed when tunnel studies are carried out.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.511-525
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• 2024

Underground openings significantly affect the mechanical stability of underground spaces and create damaged zones. This study investigated the acoustic emission (AE) characteristics associated with the formation of damaged zones around circular openings. Uniaxial compression experiments were conducted on three types of rock specimens, namely, granite (GN-1 and GN-2), gabbro (GB), and slate (SL), containing a circular opening. AE and digital image correlation (DIC) techniques were used to monitor and evaluate the damaged zones near the circular openings. The AE characteristics were evaluated using AE parameters, including count, energy, amplitude, average frequency, and RA value. The DIC results revealed that the estimated diameters of the damaged zones of GN-1, GN-2, GB, and SL were 1.66D, 1.53D, 1.49D, and 1.9D, respectively. The average displacements at the surface of the damaged zones for these specimens were 0.814, 0.786, 0.661, and 0.673 mm, respectively, thus demonstrating a strong correlation with Young's modulus. The AE analysis with DIC revealed that tensile failure occurred in the direction parallel to the maximum compression axis as the load increased. Thus, this study provides fundamental data for a comprehensive analysis of damaged zones in underground openings and will facilitate the optimization of rock engineering projects and safety assessments thereof.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.6
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• pp.557-570
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• 2024

Due to interfacial ageing, chemical action and interfacial damage, the interface debonding may appear in the interfaces of composite laminates. Particularly, the laminates display a side-dependent effect at small scale. In this work, a three-dimensional (3D) and anisotropic thick nanoplate model is proposed to investigate the effects of imperfect interface and nonlocal parameter on the bending deformation, vibrational response and buckling stability of one-dimensional (1D) hexagonal quasicrystal (QC) layered nanoplates. By combining the linear spring model with the transferring matrix method, exact solutions of phonon and phason displacements, phonon and phason stresses of bending deformation, the natural frequencies of vibration and the critical buckling loads of 1D hexagonal QC layered nanoplates are derived with imperfect interfaces and nonlocal effects. Numerical examples are illustrated to demonstrate the effects of the imperfect interface parameter, aspect ratio, thickness, nonlocal parameter, and stacking sequence on the bending deformation, the vibrational response and the critical buckling load of 1D hexagonal QC layered nanoplate. The results indicate that both the interface debonding and nonlocal effect can reduce the stiffness and stability of layered nanoplates. Increasing thickness of QC coatings can enhance the stability of sandwich nanoplates with the perfect interfaces, while it can reduce first and then enhance the stability of sandwich nanoplates with the imperfect interfaces. The biaxial compression easily results in an instability of the QC layered nanoplates compared to uniaxial compression. QC material is suitable for surface layers in layered structures. The mechanical behavior of QC layered nanoplates can be optimized by imposing imperfect interfaces and controlling the stacking sequence artificially. The present solutions are helpful for the various numerical methods, thin nanoplate theories and the optimal design of QC nano-composites in engineering practice with interfacial debonding.