Micromechanics of Fracture Propagation During Multistage Stress Relaxation and Creep in Brittle Rocks

Zafar, Sana; Hedayat, Ahmadreza; Moradian, Omid

doi:10.1007/s00603-022-03045-w

Micromechanics of Fracture Propagation During Multistage Stress Relaxation and Creep in Brittle Rocks

Journal Article · Wed Sep 07 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-022-03045-w· OSTI ID:2465107

^[1]; Hedayat, Ahmadreza ^[2]; Moradian, Omid ^[3]

Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); Colorado School of Mines
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich (Switzerland)

Time-dependent rock deformation caused by the initiation and growth of fractures leads to the weakening of the rock mass. Understanding the fracturing mechanisms involved in the time-dependent behavior in brittle rocks is very important and to achieve this goal, a systematic series of three types of experiments was performed on double-flawed prismatic Barre granite specimens under unconfined compression. The first series aimed to identify the failure mechanism in the short-term failure mode under monotonic loading, the, second series involved multistage relaxation (constant strain) experiments to analyze the damage at different strain levels, and the third series explored the fracture propagation under multistage creep (constant load) experiments. The spatial and temporal evolution of cracking mechanisms were evaluated using the acoustic emission (AE) and two-dimensional digital image correlation (2D-DIC) techniques to observe the whole crack growth process as well as the accumulated inelastic strain at the specified region of interest. Results suggest that in the case of multistage creep experiments, the time to failure was less compared to the multistage relaxation, when loaded above the crack damage threshold (CD) estimated from the monotonic testing. Furthermore, the frequency magnitude distribution of the AE events generated in the three loading conditions followed the Gutenberg Richter model. A relatively lower b-value was obtained for the creep experiments, indicative of high energy AE events and faster crack growth. In addition, the AE and DIC results also revealed high evolution of tensile cracks at-different stages of creep and relaxation compared to shear and mixed-mode cracks.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0019117

OSTI ID:: 2465107

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 2420966

Journal Information:: Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, Journal Name: Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 55; ISSN 0723-2632

Publisher:: SpringerCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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58 GEOSCIENCES
Barre granite
Brittle rocks
Crack mechanisms
Multistage creep
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Tensile and shear cracks
Time-dependent failure

Micromechanics of Fracture Propagation During Multistage Stress Relaxation and Creep in Brittle Rocks

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