Evaluation of the propensity of strain burst in brittle granite based on post-peak energy analysis

Abstract

The increasing demand for resources and depletion of near ground mineral resources caused deeper mining operations under high-stress rock mass conditions. As a result of this, strain burst, which is the sudden release of stored strain energy in the surrounding rock mass, has become more prevalent and created a considerable threat to workers and construction equipment. It is, therefore, imperative to understand how strain burst mechanism and stored excess strain energy are affected due to the high confinement in deep underground conditions. For this purpose, post-peak energy distributions for brittle rocks were investigated using a newly developed energy calculation method associated with acoustic emission (AE). A series of quasi-static uniaxial and triaxial compression tests controlled by the circumferential expansion were conducted. Snap-back behaviour known as Class-II behaviour associated with energy evolution and the material response under self-sustaining failure were analysed on granites under a wide range of confining pressures (0–60 MPa). The experimental results underline that the energy evolution characteristics are strongly linked to confinement. Stored elastic strain energy (dUE), energy consumed by dominating cohesion weakening (dΦCW) and energy dissipated during mobilisation of frictional failure (dΦFM) showed a rising trend as the confining pressure was increased. An intrinsic ejection velocity was proposed to express the propensity of strain burst that was purely determined by the excess strain energy released from Class II rock.