Abstract
To investigate the energy storage and dissipation characteristics during rock flexure fracturing, a series of single cyclic loading–unloading flexural fracture tests was conducted on rectangular rock beams using the three-point loading technique. The results show that under different experimental unloading levels, the elastic and dissipation energies increase linearly as the input energy increases. On this basis, the linear energy storage and dissipation laws were obtained, which were immune to the experimental unloading level. The flexural energy storage coefficient and flexural energy dissipation coefficient were subsequently introduced to characterize the potentials of the rock for storing and dissipating energy, respectively. A positive or negative relationship between the two coefficients and the rock mechanics properties (the brittleness index and average flexural strength) was observed. The influence of pre-existing rock flaws on the linear energy storage and dissipation laws was discussed. In addition, highly quadratic increases in the elastic energy, dissipation energy, and input energy were observed with an increasing experimental unloading level. For the energy characteristics at rock failure (the failure point of the rock specimen), the peak input energy, peak elastic energy, and peak dissipation energy varied considerably under different experimental unloading levels, while the associated peak elastic dissipation index (the ratio of peak elastic energy to peak dissipation energy) remained constant. Similar to the flexural energy storage coefficient, the mean value of peak elastic dissipation index is also positively related to the rock mechanics properties. The linear evolution law of energy storage and dissipation not only permits a quantitative determination of the energy parameters at rock failure (the peak elastic energy and peak dissipation energy), but also relates the energy properties with the rock mechanics properties.
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