Quantification of full-field stress in continuously loaded fractured rocks using 3D printing and digital photoelasticity

Abstract

Accurately characterizing stress fields in fractured rocks is crucial for understanding fracture propagation and rock failure mechanisms. However, existing methods struggle to quantify stress fields in continuously loaded fractured rocks with complex fracture networks. In this study, we propose a novel method that utilizes 3D printing and digital photoelasticity to quantify full-field stress in complex fractured rocks under continuous loading. Our method incorporates three key components: a modified global fringe thinning technique for automatic extraction of fringe skeletons, a proposed algorithm for automatic identification of near-zero-order fringe regions, and an optimized phase calculation process for efficient phase unwrapping. The effectiveness and accuracy of our method are validated through theoretical analysis and comparison with results obtained from the ten-step phase shifting method. Furthermore, our proposed method can also be applied to quantify stress fields in fractured rocks under static loading.