The mixology of precursory strain partitioning approaching brittle failure in rocks

SUMMARY We examine the strain accumulation and localization process throughout 12 triaxial compression experiments on six rock types deformed in an X-ray transparent apparatus. In each experiment, we acquire 50–100 tomograms of rock samples at differential stress steps during loading, revealing the evolving 3-D distribution of X-ray absorption contrasts, indicative of density. Using digital volume correlation (DVC) of pairs of tomograms, we build time-series of 3-D incremental strain tensor fields as the rocks are deformed towards failure. The Pearson correlation coefficients between components of the local incremental strain tensor at each stress step indicate that the correlation strength between pairs of local strain components, including dilation, contraction and shear strain, are moderate-strong in 11 of 12 experiments. In addition, changes in the local strain components from one DVC calculation to the next show differences in the correlations between pairs of strain components. In particular, the correlation of the local changes in dilation and shear strain tends to be stronger than the correlation of changes in dilation-contraction and contraction-shear strain. In 11 of 12 experiments, the most volumetrically frequent mode of strain accommodation includes a synchronized increase in multiple strain components. Early in loading, under lower differential stress, the most frequent strain accumulation mode involves the paired increase in dilation and contraction at neighbouring locations. Under higher differential stress, the most frequent mode is the paired increase in dilation and shear strain. This mode is also the first or second most frequent throughout each complete experiment. Tracking the mean values of the strain components in the sample and the volume of rock that each component occupies reveals fundamental differences in the nature of strain accumulation and localization between the volumetric and shear strain modes. As the dilative strain increases in magnitude throughout loading, it tends to occupy larger volumes within the rock sample and thus delocalizes. In contrast, the increasing shear strain components (left- or right-lateral) do not necessarily occupy larger volumes and so involve localization. Consistent with these evolutions, the correlation length of the dilatational strains tends to increase by the largest amounts of the strain components from lower to higher differential stress. In contrast, the correlation length of the shear strains does not consistently increase or decrease with increasing differential stress.