scholarly journals Research on Fracture and Energy Evolution of Rock Containing Natural Fractures under Cyclic Loading Condition

Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Xueliang Li ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Shuo Xu ◽  
Haonan Yang ◽  
Bo Li

For rock engineering in cold regions, the naturally fractured rock is susceptible to repeated freeze-thaw (F-T) weathering, coupled fatigue conditions of freeze-thaw (F-T), and stress disturbance act on rock mass, which can lead to the instability of rock engineering and even occurrence of geological hazards. Knowledge of how natural fracture affects the overall fracture evolution of freeze-thawed rock is crucial to rock mass stability. Laboratory multilevel cyclic loading tests are conducted to reveal the fatigue behavior and energy evolution for naturally fractured marble, as well as the influence of natural fracture volume on fracture evolution. The test results show that the preexisting natural fracture impacts fatigue strength, lifetime, and energy dissipation. The dissipated energy is correlated to all kinds of natural fracture (i.e., opening-mode, closing-mode, and filling-mode), and it decreases with the increase of the total natural fracture volume. The dissipated energy presents a first slow and then faster pattern as the cycle number grows. Compared with newly formed cracks, the proportion of energy consumed by stimulating natural cracks is smaller.

Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Yu Wang ◽  
Xuefeng Yi ◽  
Shaohua Gao ◽  
Hao Liu

The natural fractures in rock mass are susceptible to damage evolution when subjecting to repeated freeze-thaw (F-T) weathering in cold regions, which can lead to the instability of rock engineering and even occurrence of geological hazards. Knowledge of how natural fracture impacts the overall fracture evolution of freeze-thawed rock is important to predict the stability of rock structure. In this work, we reported uniaxial experimental measurements of the changes in strength, deformation, acoustic emission (AE) pattern, and Felicity effect during increasing amplitude stress-cycling conditions on granite. The results show that the change of fracture aperture is related to the fracture openness and filling characteristics, open-type fracture is sensitive to F-T treatment, and its aperture increases faster than the close-type and fill-type fracture. In addition, strength decreases, and the damping characteristics first decrease and then increase with increasing natural fracture volume. AE activities also present different responses during sample deformation. The proportion of AE signals having low-frequency characteristics increases with increasing natural fracture volume, and the shear sliding along natural fracture results in the surge of AE activities. Moreover, the Felicity effect indicates that the Felicity ratio presents a fluctuation decreasing trend, and the preexisting fractures alter the stress memory characteristics of rock. It is suggested that the changes of the geomechanical and AE pattern are the interactions between the natural fracture and the newly stimulated fracture. The testing results are expected to improve the understanding of the influence of natural fractures on rock fracture evolution and can be helpful to predict the stability of rock structures and rock mass in cold regions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shilin Song ◽  
Xuesheng Liu ◽  
Yunliang Tan ◽  
Deyuan Fan ◽  
Qing Ma ◽  
...  

The loading modes and roof lithology have a significant influence on the mechanical properties of coal seams. To reveal the failure modes and energy evolution law of underground coal during the mining process, conventional uniaxial and uniaxial cyclic loading tests were carried out on three types of samples: coal, rock, and coal-rock combinations. The results show that the samples mainly behave with three failure modes (shear slip, tensile splitting, and fracture), and all the coal sections in the coal-rock combinations fail, whereas most rock sections remain intact. The compressive strength of the coal-rock combination is higher than coal and much smaller than rock. Compared with the conventional uniaxial loading condition, both the maximum deformation before failure and Young’s modulus under the cyclic loading condition are greater, and the latter increases quadratically with the cycle index. The energy densities are also calculated, and their variations are analysed in detail. The results show that with increasing cycle index, both the elastic energy stored in the sample and the dissipated energy increase in a quadratic function, and the failure process becomes more intense. This research reveals the failure modes, deformation characteristics, and energy evolution of the coal-rock combination under different loading conditions, which can provide strong support for controlling underground surrounding rocks of the coal face and roadway in coalmines.


Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Ning Guo ◽  
Changhong Li ◽  
Hao Liu ◽  
Yu Wang

Naturally fractured rock mass is susceptible to stress disturbance and could result in the stimulation of natural fractures and even serious geological hazards. In this work, multilevel uniaxial fatigue loading experiments were carried out to reveal the fracture and energy evolution of naturally fractured granite using stress-strain descriptions and energy evolution analysis. Results reveal the influence of natural fracture on mechanical properties of granite, regarding the fatigue lifetime, fatigue deformation characteristics, fatigue damage, energy evolution, and fatigue failure pattern. Volumetric and shear processes caused by the sliding and shearing along the natural fracture control the whole failure process. The energy dissipation and release characteristics are strongly impacted by natural fractures. The elastic energy and dissipated energy both decrease with increasing natural fracture volume, growth of the dissipated energy becomes faster for rock near to failure. It is proved that the dissipated energy is mainly used to activate the preexisting natural fractures.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingwei Zhang ◽  
Qingbin Meng ◽  
Shengdong Liu

To explore the influence of confining pressure on the energy evolution characteristics of loaded rocks, triaxial cyclic loading-unloading experiments on sandstones were carried out under 6 kinds of confining pressures using the axial loading and circumferential deforming control modes. Total energy density, elastic energy density, and dissipated energy density absorbed by rock specimens under different confining pressures were obtained. The confining pressure effect of the evolution process and distribution law in energy accumulation and dissipation was analyzed. Energy conversion mechanism from rock deformation to failure was revealed, and energy conversion equations in different stress-strain stages were established. The method of representing the rock energy accumulation, dissipation, and release behaviors by energy storage limit density, maximum dissipated energy density, and residual elastic energy density was established. The rock showed that, with the increase of confining pressure, the characteristic energy density of rock increased in the power exponent form, and the energy storage limit density increased faster than the maximum dissipated energy density. The greater the confining pressure was, the greater the proportion of elastic energy before peak was. It is indicated that the confining pressure increased the energy inputting intensity, improved the energy accumulating efficiency, and inhibited the energy releasing degree.


2021 ◽  
pp. 105678952110216
Author(s):  
Y Wang ◽  
B Zhang ◽  
B Li ◽  
CH Li

The naturally fractured rock in the open pit slope is susceptible to irreversible damage caused by fatigue loads related to freeze-thaw weathering, blasting vibration, earthquakes and tramcar traffic. To ensure the safety of rock mass and reveal how natural fracture affects the damage modelling characteristics is of great concern. Hence, this work aims at investigating the fatigue damage evolution of rock from volumetric deformation caused by F-T and cyclic loads. The rock structural deterioration and damage accumulation were investigated as well as the stimulated natural fracture pattern. Results show the frost heaving force acted on natural fracture results in the rock volumetric changes. The damage variable expressed by volumetric strain presents a linear relationship with freeze-thaw cycles. In addition, the axial, lateral and volumetric strain of marble exposed to cyclic loads present a two-stage pattern, they first increase quickly and then get to steady and last for a long time. A new fatigue damage model was established by considering the freeze-thaw damage and mechanical damage simultaneously. The proposed coupling damage model can well describe rock damage accumulation. Moreover, the CT images further reveal the influence of the natural fracture on rock volumetric deformation and the final damage accumulation. It is suggested that the opening-mode natural fractures contribute a lot to rock freeze-thaw deformation and fatigue deformation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Barbera ◽  
Haofeng Chen

ABSTRACTStructural integrity plays an important role in any industrial activity, due to its capability of assessing complex systems against sudden and unpredicted failures. The work here presented investigates an unexpected new mechanism occurring in structures subjected to monotonic and cyclic loading at high temperature creep condition. An unexpected accumulation of plastic strain is observed to occur, within the high-temperature creep dwell. This phenomenon has been observed during several full inelastic finite element analyses. In order to understand which parameters make possible such behaviour, an extensive numerical study has been undertaken on two different notched bars. The notched bar has been selected due to its capability of representing a multiaxial stress state, which is a practical situation in real components. Two numerical examples consisting of an axisymmetric v-notch bar and a semi-circular notched bar are considered, in order to investigate different notches severity. Two material models have been considered for the plastic response, which is modelled by both Elastic-Perfectly Plastic and Armstrong-Frederick kinematic hardening material models. The high-temperature creep behaviour is introduced using the time hardening law. To study the problem several results are presented, as the effect of the material model on the plastic strain accumulation, the effect of the notch severity and the mesh element type and sensitivity. All the findings further confirm that the phenomenon observed is not an artefact but a real mechanism, which needs to be considered when assessing off-design condition. Moreover, it might be extremely dangerous if the cyclic loading condition occurs at such a high loading level.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 3333-3345
Author(s):  
Ali Al-Rubaie ◽  
Hisham Khaled Ben Mahmud

Abstract All reservoirs are fractured to some degree. Depending on the density, dimension, orientation and the cementation of natural fractures and the location where the hydraulic fracturing is done, preexisting natural fractures can impact hydraulic fracture propagation and the associated flow capacity. Understanding the interactions between hydraulic fracture and natural fractures is crucial in estimating fracture complexity, stimulated reservoir volume, drained reservoir volume and completion efficiency. However, because of the presence of natural fractures with diffuse penetration and different orientations, the operation is complicated in naturally fractured gas reservoirs. For this purpose, two numerical methods are proposed for simulating the hydraulic fracture in a naturally fractured gas reservoir. However, what hydraulic fracture looks like in the subsurface, especially in unconventional reservoirs, remain elusive, and many times, field observations contradict our common beliefs. In this study, the hydraulic fracture model is considered in terms of the state of tensions, on the interaction between the hydraulic fracture and the natural fracture (45°), and the effect of length and height of hydraulic fracture developed and how to distribute induced stress around the well. In order to determine the direction in which the hydraulic fracture is formed strikethrough, the finite difference method and the individual element for numerical solution are used and simulated. The results indicate that the optimum hydraulic fracture time was when the hydraulic fracture is able to connect natural fractures with large streams and connected to the well, and there is a fundamental difference between the tensile and shear opening. The analysis indicates that the growing hydraulic fracture, the tensile and shear stresses applied to the natural fracture.


Author(s):  
Li H. Wang

Fatigue crack growth rates (FCGR) of sensitized austenitic stainless steel (SS) were measured in simulated BWR water at 288 °C using compact tension specimens under different cyclic loading modes, including saw-tooth, trapezoidal and constant loading pattern. This study tested sensitized SS in normal water chemistry (NWC) and hydrogen water chemistry (HWC) respectively, and attempted to clarify the effect of low electrochemical corrosion potential on the FCGR of sensitized stainless steel. Significant environment effects on FCGR of sensitized stainless steel were observed in both water chemistries when compared with air fatigue curve. The pronounced suppression effect of HWC on crack growth in statically sustained load was not observed in cyclic loading condition. ASME curve doesn’t seem to be conservative and could not bound all the FCGR data tested in this study. In contrast, all of the measured FCGR data were bound by the JSME disposition curve. PLEDGE model proposed by General Electric reasonably predicted the FCGR of sensitized SS in NWC, but underestimated the FCGR in HWC. ANL’s superposition model successfully estimated the FCGR measured in both water chemistries. The fractography exhibited transgranular fracture mode during the crack initiation and growth stage. No differences in the appearance of fracture surface were observed in HWC and NWC. Only in very high DO environments, the sensitized 304 SS exhibited the mixed mode of intergranular and transgranular during growth stage.


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