Experimental Study on Shear Behavior of Rock Composite Material under Normal Unloading Conditions.

As a composite material, the stability of rock mass is usually controlled by a joint. During the process of excavation, the normal stress of the joint decreases continuously, and then the shear strength of the joint decreases, which may eventually lead to the instability and failure of rock mass. Previous studies have mainly focused on the shear behavior of joints under constant normal stress, but have rarely considered the unloading of normal stress. In this paper, a direct shear test of joints with different roughness was carried out, in which the shear stress remained unchanged while the normal stress decreased. The strength characteristics of joints were explored, and the deformation and acoustic emission-counting characteristics of joints were analyzed by digital image correlation (DIC) techniques and acoustic emission (AE). A new method for predicting the instability of joints under normal unloading was proposed based on the evolution law of normal deformation energy (Un), tangential deformation energy (Us) and total deformation energy (U0). The results show the following: (1) The unloading amount of normal stress was enlarged for greater initial normal stress and roughness, while it decreased with an increase in initial shear stress. (2) AE events reached their maximum when the normal stress was equal to the failure normal stress, and the b-value fluctuated more frequently in stable development periods under normal unloading conditions. (3) U0 would change with the loading and unloading of stress, and this may be used to predict the unloading instability of rock mass using the abrupt change of U0.

Fracture Closure Empirical Model and Theoretical Damage Model of Rock under Compression.

The rock or rock mass in engineering often contains joints, fractures, voids, and other defects, which are the root cause of local or overall failure. In response to most of the current constitutive models that fail to simulate the nonlinear fracture compaction deformation in the whole process of rock failure, especially brittle rocks, a piecewise constitutive model was proposed to represent the global constitutive relation of rocks in this study, which was composed of the fracture compaction empirical model and the damage statistical constitutive model. The fracture empirical compaction model was determined by fitting the expressions of fracture closure curves of various rocks, while the rock damage evolution equation was derived underpinned by the fracture growth. According to the effective stress concept and strain equivalence hypothesis, the rock damage constitutive model was deduced. The model parameters of the fracture compaction empirical model and damage statistical constitutive model were all calculated by the geometrical characteristics of the global axial stress-strain curve to guarantee that the models are continuous and smooth at the curve intersection, which is also simple and ready to program. Finally, the uniaxial compression test data and the triaxial compression test data of different rocks in previous studies were employed to validate the models, and the determination coefficient was used to measure the accuracy. The results showed great consistency between the model curves and test data, especially in the pre-peak stage.

Numerical Analysis of Microcrack Propagation Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Serrated Structural Plane.

The serrated structural plane is the basic unit of structural plane morphology. However, the understanding of its internal stress distribution, failure mode and crack evolution law was not clear enough in previous studies. In this paper, the shear mechanical properties of the serrated structural planes were studied by numerical simulation, and the crack evolution law of the serrated structural planes and the effects of four microscopic parameters on the shear properties were analyzed. The results show that: (1) the number of microcracks increases with the increase in normal stress; the crack expansion rate is slow before the shear stress reaches the peak. After the shear stress reaches the peak, the crack expansion rate continues to increase, and the microcracks keep sprouting and expanding, and the number of microcracks tends to stabilize when the shear stress reaches the residual shear strength. (2) The particle contact stiffness ratio kn∗/ks∗ and parallel bond stiffness ratio kn/ks were negatively correlated with the shear strength; and the particle contact modulus E and parallel bond modulus E∗ were positively correlated with the shear strength. As the particle contact modulus E and parallel bond modulus E∗ increase, the peak shear displacement gradually decreases. The parallel bond stiffness ratio kn/ks has a negative correlation with the peak shear displacement. This study is expected to provide theoretical guidance for the microscopic parameter calibration and shear mechanical analysis of serrated structural planes. (3) Several XGBoost, WOA-XGBoost, and PSO-XGBoost algorithms are introduced to construct the quantitative prediction model, and the comparative analysis found that WOA-XGBoost has the best fitting effect and can be used for the prediction of shear strength. When using this model to calculate the weight shares of micro-parameters, it was found that kn∗/ks∗ has the greatest influence on shear strength, followed by E∗; E and kn/ks had the least influence.

Mechanical Properties and Acoustic Emission Characteristics of Anchored Structure Plane with Different JRC under Direct Shear Test.

Rock mass, the heterogeneous natural material composed of rock and discontinuities, is an important part of engineering construction. Discontinuities affect the mechanical properties of natural rock mass and further threaten the stability of rock engineering. To study the failure characteristics of anchored structure plane with different JRC, jointed specimens with four different JRC were fabricated by pouring cement mortar. Specimens were tested under four different normal loads to figure out how JRC and anchorage angle affect the mechanical properties of anchored structure plane. Besides, acoustic emission (AE) testing technology was adopted to explore the AE characteristics of anchored structural plane under shearing. The results showed that there exists a positive correlation between the peak shear strength and JRC. The undulation shape of structural plane led to an obvious downward trend in the strain softening stage of the structural plane with JRC of 6-8 and 18-20. When the anchorage angle ranged from 45° to 60°, the potentiation of bolt was the most significant. Based on the AE results, the larger the normal stress, the more likely the cumulative count curves were to enter the fast growth phase before the peak. The characteristics of b-value curves are mainly related to the topography of structural planes and whether the bolt is deformed. In the direct shear test, the cumulative proportion of shear cracks was more than 85%, which is much higher than that of tensile cracks. The variation of cumulative tensile cracks goes through three stages: slow growth, rapid growth, and slow growth. Compared with the unanchored structural plane, the variation range of real-time tensile cracks of the anchored structural plane is large, and sometimes the proportion of real-time tensile cracks may reach 80%.

Experimental and numerical study of the failure process and energy mechanisms of rock-like materials containing cross un-persistent joints under uniaxial compression.

Joints and fissures in natural rocks have a significant influence on the stability of the rock mass, and it is often necessary to evaluate strength failure and crack evolution behavior. In this paper, based on experimental tests and numerical simulation (PFC2D), the macro-mechanical behavior and energy mechanism of jointed rock-like specimens with cross non-persistent joints under uniaxial loading were investigated. The focus was to study the effect of joint dip angle α and intersection angle γ on the characteristic stress, the coalescence modes and the energy release of jointed rock-like specimens. For specimens with γ = 30° and 45°, the UCS (uniaxial compression strength), CIS (crack initiation stress) and CDiS (critical dilatancy stress) increase as α increases from 0° to 75°. When γ = 60° and 75°, the UCS, CIS and CDiS increase as α increases from 0° to 60° and decrease when α is over 60°. Both the inclination angle α and intersection angle γ have great influence on the failure pattern of pre-cracked specimens. With different α and γ, specimens exhibit 4 kinds of failure patterns. Both the experimental and numerical results show that the energy of a specimen has similar trends with characteristic stress as α increases.