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An Experimental and Numerical Study on Mechanical Behavior of Ubiquitous-Joint Brittle Rock-Like Specimens Under Uniaxial Compression

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Abstract

Rock engineers often encounter materials with a large number of discontinuities that significantly influence rock stability. However, the strength and failure patterns of ubiquitous-joint rock specimens have not been examined comprehensively. In this study, the peak uniaxial compressive strength (UCSJ) and failure patterns of ubiquitous-joint rock-like specimens are investigated by combining similar material testing and numerical simulation using the two-dimensional particle flow code. The rock-like specimens are made of white cement, water, and sand. Flaws are created by inserting mica sheets into the fresh cement mortar paste. Under uniaxial compressional loading, the failure patterns of ubiquitous-joint specimens can be classified into four categories: stepped path failure, planar failure, shear-I failure, and shear-II failure. The failure pattern of the specimen depends on the joint-1 inclination angle α and the intersection angle γ between joint-1 and joint-2, while α strongly affects UCSJ. The UCSJ of specimens with γ = 15° or 30° shows similar tendencies for 0° ≤ α ≤ 75°. For specimens with γ = 45° or 60°, UCSJ increases for 0° ≤ α ≤ 30° and decreases for α > 30°. For specimens with γ = 75°, the UCSJ peaks when α = 0° and increases for 60° ≤ α ≤ 75°. The numerical and experimental results show good agreement for both the peak strength and failure patterns. These results can improve our understanding of the mechanical behavior of ubiquitous-joint rock mass and can be used to analyze the stability of rock slopes or other rock engineering cases such as tunneling construction in heavily jointed rock mass.

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Acknowledgments

This paper gets its funding from Project (51304240, 51474249, 51404179, 51174228, 51274249) supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China; Project Supported by Innovation Driven Plan of Central South University (No. 2016CX019). Project supported by the Graduate student innovation project of Central south university (2015zzts074). Project supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (310821161008) and the Opening fund of State Key Laboratory of Geo-hazard Prevention and Geo-environment Protection (SKLGP2016K009). The authors wish to acknowledge these supports. At the same time, authors are very grateful for the anonymous reviewers’ valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, Hunan, China

    Ri-hong Cao, Ping Cao, Xinguang Xiong & Hang Lin

  2. School of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an, 710064, China

    Xiang Fan

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  1. Ri-hong Cao
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  2. Ping Cao
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  4. Xinguang Xiong
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Correspondence to Ping Cao.

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Cao, Rh., Cao, P., Fan, X. et al. An Experimental and Numerical Study on Mechanical Behavior of Ubiquitous-Joint Brittle Rock-Like Specimens Under Uniaxial Compression. Rock Mech Rock Eng 49, 4319–4338 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-016-1029-6

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