Experimental study of opening-mode crack growth in rock. Progress report

Technical Report · Wed Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1984

OSTI ID:5376566

Gordon, R B

The objective has been to discover the mechanisms by which tensile cracks form in rock and so relate both the resistance of rock to fracture and the properties of the fracture surfaces to the microstructure of the rock. The main research effort in the past year has been on the direct observation of the microscopic processes by which a fracture forms in rock. An apparatus that permits a stable, tensile crack to be propagated through a rock specimen while it is on the stage of microscope has been designed and built. With this, changes in microstructure can be observed while the crack is growing. Observations have been made so far on samples of marble and granite. Additional experiments have been done to test the validity of the method of calculating fracture energy used with our standardized test procedure for full-size specimens.

• Research Organization: Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (USA). Dept. of Geology and Geophysics
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-79ER10445
• OSTI ID: 5376566
• Report Number(s): DOE/ER/10445-T3; ON: DE84006869
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
580300* -- Mineralogy
Petrology
& Rock Mechanics-- (-1989)
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CRACK PROPAGATION
DEFORMATION
EQUIPMENT
FAILURES
FRACTURE PROPERTIES
FRACTURES
GRANITES
IGNEOUS ROCKS
LABORATORY EQUIPMENT
MARBLE
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
METAMORPHIC ROCKS
MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGES
PLUTONIC ROCKS
ROCKS
ULTRASTRUCTURAL CHANGES