Unloading Characteristics of Hard Rock at Depth

2011 ◽  
Vol 243-249 ◽  
pp. 2205-2210
Author(s):  
Ying Hui Lv ◽  
Xia Ting Feng ◽  
Jun Yan Liu

DaGangShan power station in China is being excavation at 1500 meters deep below earth surface, where the surrounding rock is affected by high initial geo-stress. Deep excavation of rock tunnels causes release of high initial geo-stress and produces unloading action. As thus, a series of representative unloading tests on hard granite from DaGangShan power station are carried out to simulate dynamically excavation process, and in unloading tests, the stress path of decreasing confining pressure along with increasing axial pressure is accepted. The results of tests show as follows: (1) Under unloading condition, lateral deformation occurs in the unloading direction and volumetric strain changes from compression deformation to dilation deformation. (2) Under unloading condition, crack deformation appears, which results in Poisson’s ration rise and deformation modulus decrease. (3) Under unloading condition, hard granites behave brittle failure and Mogi-coulomb criterion can well describe the failure characteristics.

2011 ◽  
Vol 90-93 ◽  
pp. 61-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Hui Lv ◽  
Bin Yan

In the process of deep tunnel excavation, the surrounding rock mass, which often endures high initial geo-stress, is in the state of typical unloading. As the adjustment of stress induced by excavation, rock mass behaves a peculiar kind of mechanical deformation characteristics, different from those in loading conditions. As thus, a series of representative unloading tests on hard granite from DaGangShan power station in China, which is being excavation at 1500 meters deep below earth surface, are carried out to simulate dynamically excavation process for studying the peculiar mechanical deformation characteristics. On the basis of unloading tests, a series of research results are acquired as follows: (1) Under unloading condition, lateral deformation occurs in the unloading direction and volumetric strain changes from compression deformation to dilation deformation. (2) Under unloading condition, hard granites behave brittle failure and Mogi-coulomb criterion can well describe the failure characteristics. (3) According to curves of unloading tests, the constitutive model is deduced for simulation analysis.


2011 ◽  
Vol 71-78 ◽  
pp. 1455-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Ming Zhang ◽  
Zai Quan Wang

The mechanical parameters and failure characteristics were obtained based on the results of triaxial unloading tests of limestone. Results show that: The evolution of volumetric strain is determined by lateral strain under unloading condition. Failure modes of rock can be classified into three types. Deformation modulus decreases and Poisson ratio increases in the process of unloading. Mohr-Coulomb criterion can not describe rock unloading failure strength property. Rock burst occur during tunnel excavation are closely related to the rock unloading failure characteristic.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenhua Zhang ◽  
Huayan Yao ◽  
Hongguo Li ◽  
Hanbin Bian ◽  
Dayong Zhu

Abstract Water has effects on the strength and failure characteristics of the sandstone in natural environment. Conventional triaxial compressive or unloading confining pressure experiments were conducted on sandstone specimens. Experimental results indicate that the compressive strength of sandstone decreases significantly under saturated conditions in comparison with dry conditions, the strength parameters of saturated specimens under unloading confining pressure are also lower than those of dry rock samples; for the sandstone with the same water content, the strengths under triaxial unloading confining pressure is slightly higher than those under triaxial compressive condition; compared with the stress path of triaxial compression, the stress path of unloading confining pressure makes cracks propagate more easily along the axial direction, and the angle between fracture surface and axial direction is smaller. Under triaxial unloading confining pressure, there failure modes of dry sandstone are tension failure and shear failure, while that of saturated sandstone is mainly shear failure. In the process of water saturation, the bond and friction characteristics between grain particles are degraded due to water weakening the cementation between the grain particles and softening grains boundary, and the expansion of clay minerals in the sandstone, which leads to the decrease of macroscopic mechanical strengths.


2011 ◽  
Vol 243-249 ◽  
pp. 2797-2801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Gang Zhang ◽  
Kun Yong Zhang ◽  
Wang Lin Li ◽  
Qiao Zhen Shi

The current research was implemented to study the practical unloading stress path that the slope mass experienced during the excavation process, which is very important in the stress and strain numerical analysis. Series of unloading tests were carried out under different confining pressure. During the test process, the minor principal stress was kept decreasing, while the major principal stress was kept unchanged to simulate the stress path in some locations of the soil slope, such as at the top of the slope. The corresponding conventional triaxial compression tests were also carried out as comparison. It is shown that there are many differences between the unloading and loading tests. Through analyzing, the tests results could be applied in the development of unloading constitutive models of excavation soil mass. Also, such unloading tests data are valuable in calibration and verification of the current existing popularly used models.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yong Luo ◽  
Fengqiang Gong ◽  
Dongqiao Liu

To study the effect of excavation unloading on hard rock failure, a series of true-triaxial compression tests, biaxial compression tests, and true-triaxial unloading compression tests (two different unloading rates) at different confining pressures was conducted on red sandstone cube samples. The strength and failure characteristics and their relationship for red sandstone unloading at different unloading rates and confining pressures were analyzed. Based on the test results, the effects of the unloading rate and confining pressure on the strength and failure characteristics of hard rock were explored, and a reasonable explanation for unloading-induced spalling in hard rock tunnels was presented. The results show the stress-strain curve of highly stressed red sandstone exhibits a stress step during unloading, and the higher the unloading rate, the lower the stress level required for a stress step. The rock strength-weakening effect induced by unloading was confirmed. The mechanical properties of red sandstone become more unstable and complicated after unloading. After the red sandstone is unloaded to a two-dimensional stress state, with increasing confining pressure, the strength increases first and then decreases; the failure mode changes from a low-confining pressure tensile-shear failure to a high-confining pressure tensile failure; and the geometries of the slabs change from large thick plates and wedges to medium- and small-sized thin plates. At equal confining pressures, the higher the unloading rate, the lower the strength (i.e., the strength-weakening effect is more pronounced), the thinner the slab, and the lower the confining pressure required for the failure mode to change from tensile-shear failure to tensile failure. The unloading rate and confining pressure affect the strength and failure characteristics by affecting the crack initiation type and propagation direction in hard rock. For deep hard rock tunnels with high unloading rate and axial stress, neglecting the effects of unloading rate and axial stress will lead to a dangerous support design. For deep hard rock ore, if the maximal horizontal principal stress exceeds the critical confining pressure, the mining surface should be perpendicular to the direction of the minimal horizontal principal stress. The results of this study are of great engineering significance for guiding deep hard rock tunnel construction and mining.


Author(s):  
F Li ◽  
V M Puri

A medium pressure (<21 MPa) flexible boundary cubical triaxial tester was designed to measure the true three-dimensional response of powders. In this study, compression behaviour and strength of a microcrystalline cellulose powder (Avicel® PH102), a spray-dried alumina powder (A16SG), and a fluid-bed-granulated silicon nitride based powder (KY3500) were measured. To characterize the mechanical behaviour, three types of triaxial stress paths, that is, the hydrostatic triaxial compression (HTC), the conventional triaxial compression (CTC), and the constant mean pressure triaxial compression (CMPTC) tests were performed. The HTC test measured the volumetric response of the test powders under isostatic pressure from 0 to 13.79MPa, during which the three powders underwent a maximum volumetric strain of 40.8 per cent for Avicel® PH102, 30.5 per cent for A16SG, and 33.0 per cent for KY3500. The bulk modulus values increased 6.4-fold from 57 to 367MPa for Avicel® PH102, 3.7-fold from 174 to 637 MPa for A16SG, and 8.1-fold from 74 to 597MPa for KY3500, when the isotropic stress increased from 0.69 to 13.79 MPa. The CTC and CMPTC tests measured the shear response of the three powders. From 0.035 to 3.45MPa confining pressure, the shear modulus increased 28.7-fold from 1.6 to 45.9MPa for Avicel® PH102, 35-fold from 1.7 to 60.5MPa for A16SG, and 28.5-fold from 1.5 to 42.8MPa for KY3500. In addition, the failure stresses of the three powders increased from 0.129 to 4.41 MPa for Avicel® PH102, 0.082 to 3.62 MPa for A16SG, and 0.090 to 4.66MPa for KY3500, respectively, when consolidation pressure increased from 0.035 to 3.45MPa. In addition, the shear modulus and failure stress values determined from the CTC test at 2.07, 2.76, and 3.45MPa confining pressures are consistently greater than those from the CMPTC test at the same constant mean pressures. This observation demonstrates the influence of stress paths on material properties. The CTT is a useful tool for characterizing the three-dimensional response of powders and powder mixtures.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (7) ◽  
pp. 983-991
Author(s):  
Hua Yu ◽  
Kam Ng ◽  
Dario Grana ◽  
John Kaszuba ◽  
Vladimir Alvarado ◽  
...  

The presence of compliant pores in rocks is important for understanding the stress–strain behaviors under different stress conditions. This paper describes findings on the effect of compliant pores on the mechanical behavior of a reservoir sandstone under hydrostatic and triaxial compression. Laboratory experiments were conducted at reservoir temperature on Weber Sandstone samples from the Rock Springs Uplift, Wyoming. Each experiment was conducted at three sequential stages: (stage 1) increase in the confining pressure while maintaining the pore pressure, (stage 2) increase in the pore pressure while maintaining the confining pressure, and (stage 3) application of the deviatoric load to failure. The nonlinear pore pressure – volumetric strain relationship governed by compliant pores under low confining pressure changes to a linear behavior governed by stiff pores under higher confining pressure. The estimated compressibilities of the matrix material in sandstone samples are close to the typical compressibility of quartz. Because of the change in pore structures during stage 1 and stage 2 loadings, the estimated bulk compressibilities of the sandstone sample under the lowest confining pressure decrease with increasing differential pressure. The increase in crack initiation stress is limited with increasing differential pressure because of similar total crack length governed by initial compliant porosity in sandstone samples.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 755
Author(s):  
Lei Sun

The effect of variable confining pressure (VCP) on the cyclic deformation and cyclic pore water pressure in K0-consolidated saturated soft marine clay were investigated with the help of the cyclic stress-controlled advanced dynamic triaxial test in undrained condition. The testing program encompassed three cyclic deviator stress ratios, CSR=0.189, 0.284 and 0.379 and three stress path inclinations ηampl=3,1 and 0.64. All tests with constant confining pressure (CCP) and variable confining pressure (VCP) have identical initial stress and average stress. The results were analyzed in terms of the accumulative normalized excess pore water pressure rqu recorded at the end of each stress cycle and permanent axial strain, as well as resilient modulus. Limited data suggest that these behavior are significantly affected by both of the VCP and CSR. For a given value of VCP, both of the pore water pressure rqu and permanent axial strains are consistently increase with the increasing values of CSR. However, for a given value of CSR, the extent of the influence of VCP and the trend is substantially depend on the CSR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Jinlong Cai ◽  
Wei Zou

A conventional triaxial compression test of Jurassic-Cretaceous typical weakly consolidated sandstone from a mining area in Ordos, China, was conducted using an MTS816 tester. Results showed that, before the peak, the rock had a distinct yield stage. When the specimen reached its peak strength, the strength decreased rapidly and showed an obvious brittle failure. When the confining pressure was increased to 15 MPa, the decrease of strength was slow and the rock tended toward ductile failure. With the increase of confining pressure, the cyclic strain initially increased slightly, whereas the volumetric strain increased greatly and the rock sample was in a compression state. When the load reached a critical value, the curve was reversely bent, resulting in volume expansion, whereas the peak strength, residual strength, and elastic modulus increased with confining pressure, and Poisson’s ratio decreased with the confining pressure. In the model based on macroscopic failure rock, the expression of the relationship between fracture angle and confining pressure provided a solid theoretical basis for the direction and failure mode of the macroscopic crack. Based on the rock strength theory and Weibull random distribution assumption of rock element strength, the damage variable correction coefficient was introduced when the residual strength was considered. Then, the mathematical expression of the 3D damage statistical constitutive model was established. Finally, the theoretical curve of the established constitutive model was compared with the triaxial test curve, which showed a high degree of coincidence.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaogui Zhou ◽  
Haiming Liu ◽  
Yintong Guo ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Zhenkun Hou ◽  
...  

Shale reservoir has an initial unloading effect during the natural uplift and erosion process, which causes the shale brittleness to change, affecting the design of the fracturing scheme. To consider this, the axial compression loading and confining pressure unloading experiment of shale is carried out, and then the influence of unloading rate on the mechanical parameters, failure characteristics, and the brittleness of rock are analyzed. What is more, a new evaluation method of brittleness characteristics that take the unloading effect into consideration is proposed. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The unloading rate has a weakening effect on the mechanical parameters, such as the destructive confining pressure and the residual strength of the samples. (2) The failure characteristics of shale specimens are a single shear failure in an oblique section under low unloading rate, and multiple shear zones accompanied with bedding fracture under high unloading rate. (3) The brittleness of shale samples is well verified by the brittleness index B d 1 and B d 2 during the loading path; nevertheless, it has shortage at the unloading path. This paper proposes a new brittleness evaluation method which can consider the influence of the different unloading rates and unloading points. Furthermore, there is a nice characterization between the brittleness damage and this method.


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