Experimental and numerical study on the fracture coalescence behavior of rock-like materials containing two non-coplanar filled fissures under uniaxial compression

Abstract

In this research, experimental and numerical simulations were adopted to investigate the effects of ligament angle on compressive strength and failure mode of rock-like material specimens containing two non-coplanar filled fissures under uniaxial compression. The experimental results show that with the increase of ligament angle, the compressive strength decreases to a nadir at the ligament angle of <TEX>$60^{\circ}$</TEX>, before increasing to the maximum at the ligament angle of <TEX>$120^{\circ}$</TEX>, while the elastic modulus is not obviously related to the ligament angle. The shear coalescence type easily occurred when <TEX>${\alpha}$</TEX> < <TEX>${\beta}$</TEX>, although having the same degree difference between the angle of ligament and fissure. Numerical simulations using <TEX>$PFC^{2D}$</TEX> were performed for flawed specimens under uniaxial compression, and the results are in good consistency with the experimental results. By analyzing the crack evolution process and parallel bond force field of rock-like material specimen containing two non-coplanar filled fissures, we can conclude that the coalescence and propagation of crack are mainly derived from parallel bond force, and the crack initiation and propagation also affect the distribution of parallel bond force. Finally, the displacement vectors in ligament region were used to identify the type of coalescence, and the results coincided with that obtained by analyzing parallel bond force field. These experimental and numerical results are expected to improve the understanding of the mechanism of flawed rock engineering structures.