A Novel Energy-Based Method to Evaluate Layered Rock Brittleness
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23, Issue 1
Abstract
Rock brittleness plays an important role in rock engineering, thus it is practically valuable to assess rock brittleness accurately. Many brittleness indices have been developed, but few methods are developed for layered rocks. Based on energy evolution, the authors propose a new index for assessing brittleness of layered rocks. The new index indicates that high rock brittleness means elastic energy accumulated effectively before peak and dissipated abruptly after peak. For the sake of verifying the proposed method, a series of compression tests were performed. The results demonstrate that rock brittleness decreases gradually with increasing confining pressure. As orientation angle increases, rock brittleness weakens and then strengthens overall. The brittleness of the specimen with an orientation angle of 0° is slightly higher than that with an orientation angle of 90°. The new index was compared with three existing brittleness indices, and the results indicate that the proposed method can evaluate brittleness of layered rock effectively.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
We thank the project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. U20A20314 and 42277183).
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- Eh
- elastic modulus in the isotropic plane;
- Ev
- elastic modulus in the direction perpendicular to the isotropic plane;
- Ur
- rupture energy;
- elastic energy before peak point;
- cumulative dissipated energy after peak point;
- total absorbed energy before peak point;
- cumulative dissipated energy before peak point;
- released elastic energy after peak point;
- residual elastic energy;
- α
- orientation angle;
- ɛa, ɛr
- axial and radial strains;
- ɛap, ɛrp
- axial and radial strains at peak point;
- σ1, σ2, σ3
- principal stresses;
- σp
- peak stress;
- σr
- residual stress; and
- υ
- Poisson’s ratio.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23 • Issue 1 • January 2023
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 19, 2021
Accepted: Jul 15, 2022
Published online: Oct 25, 2022
Published in print: Jan 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Mar 25, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Brittleness
- Compression tests
- Elastic analysis
- Energy dissipation
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Geology
- Geotechnical engineering
- Laboratory tests
- Layered systems
- Material mechanics
- Material properties
- Materials engineering
- Methodology (by type)
- Research methods (by type)
- Rocks
- Strength of materials
- Structural analysis
- Structural engineering
- Systems engineering
- Systems management
- Tests (by type)
- Thermodynamics
- Verification
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