Experimental and Numerical Study on the Damage Evolution Behaviour of Granitic Rock during Loading and Unloading

Abstract

Theoretical and experimental studies have revealed that the damage evolution plays an important role in stability of rock structures. To investigate the damage characteristics of rocks during loading and unloading, a series of conventional triaxial tests and numerical simulations were conducted on granitic rock specimens under different confining pressures. The stress-strain characteristics and fracture patterns of tested specimens were first analyzed. It was found that the failure strain in unloading is smaller than the failure strain in loading. And the difference between the two strains is growing with increasing confining pressure. The failure patterns of specimens displayed two different failure mechanisms: a single distinct failure and a “X” failure. Based on the law of energy conservation, the energy evolution was analyzed. The results indicated that absorbed strain energy converted into elastic strain energy and dissipation energy. For evaluating and predicting damage, two damage degrees were proposed considering increase of dissipation energy and decrease of tangential modulus, respectively. The results show that before the reversal point of volumetric strain, the damage degrees were almost unchanged. During the process of unloading the damage degrees increases fast. For the same strain, lower confining pressure shows more damage. It indicates that the confining pressure has negative effects on increase of the damage degree. Then, the discrete element model based on elastic and unbreakable voronoi blocks was set-up for tri-axial tests. The energy evolution and damage process were simulated. And the ratio of failed contacts was used to simulate the damage degree. It shows that stress-strain behavior as well as micro- and macro-mechanical damage evolution can be reproduced by the DEM model.