A new micromechanical damage model for quasi-brittle geomaterials with non-associated and state-dependent friction law

Abstract

In this paper, we shall present a new micromechanical damage model for capturing the mechanical behaviors of quasi-brittle geomaterials under a wide range of compressive stress. Two essential coupled non-linear mechanisms are taken into account: plastic deformation related to frictional sliding along the microcrack surfaces, and microscopic damage induced by the initiation and propagation of microcracks. Within the framework of thermodynamics and Mori–Tanaka homogenization scheme, free energy and thermodynamic forces, including the local stress applied on the microcracks and damage driving force are deduced. The main novelty of this work lies in presenting a new physically based non-associated and state-dependent friction law to capture the plastic distortion, in which the friction coefficient is no longer a constant but a state-dependent variable varying with the surface asperities of microcracks. The relationship between the friction coefficient and mean local stress, as well as microscopic damage is subtly defined. Intriguingly, a macroscopic strength criterion is derived as an inherent part of the proposed model without rotation of the principal stress. Moreover, semi-analytical stress–strain–damage relationships of the proposed model can be derived under conventional triaxial compression. These up-scaling analyses provide a powerful tool for parameter calibration. For application, the semi-implicit return mapping algorithm with plasticity-damage decoupling correction procedure (SRM-PDDC) is adopted for numerical implementation. To demonstrate the performance of the micromechanical model, we compare the model predictions with experimental data of quasi-brittle rocks in literature as well as the results obtained by Zhu et al. (2016). Finally, the applicable condition of the SRM-PDDC algorithm is discussed in detail.