Experimental study on mechanical properties and evolution of fracture failure of granite considering initial temperature damage and prefabricated fissure length

Abstract

With the increasing mining depth of deep mineral resources, the influence of high temperature on the fracture failure of surrounding rock with fissures becomes increasingly serious. To investigate the fracture mechanical properties and the evolutionary characteristics of fracture process of fissured rock experiencing initial temperature damage, the three-point bending experiment was conducted on the small sized granite samples with different initial damaging temperatures and prefabricated fissure lengths by applying a μTS mesoscopic testing system. Based on the digital image correlation methods, the evolution of fracture process zone of sample was revealed. Moreover, the macroscopic fracture failure of sample was predicted by the evolution of time-varying acoustic emission b-value. The results show that with the increase of initial damaging temperature and prefabricated fissure length, the peak load of granite sample has a decreasing trend and the fracture characteristics of sample experiencing initial temperature damage gradually transform from brittleness fracture to ductility fracture, resulting in a decrease in the fracture toughness of sample. The crack tip opening displacement, the critical opening displacement and the length of fracture process zone of sample all show an increasing trend. The time interval from the time when time-varying acoustic emission b-value continues to decline to the appearance moment of macroscopic cracks is selected as the warning time of fracture failure of sample, which can conclude that the warning time increases with increasing the initial damaging temperature and prefabricated fissure length, indicating an increase in ductility and a reduction in failure suddenness of sample.