Abstract
Previous experimental studies showed that the variation of Radon (Rn) emission is closely related to the development of rock deformation: Rn emission has a rapid increase with the growth of cracks and their surface areas (i.e. onset of fracture coalescence point), and reaches the maximum at rock failure. In this study, the stress level at the onset of fracture coalescence λ c is predicted with the renormalization group theory. It is assumed that rock is a strain-softening medium whose strength can be described by Weibull’s distribution. Result shows that λ c depends mainly on the homogeneity index or shape parameter m in the Weibull’s distribution for the rock. Both experimental and analytical results show that this point of rapid increase in Rn emission on the Rn-strain curve corresponds to the critical point on the stress–strain curve; for rock compression, the stress at this point is approximately 70–80 % of the peak strength. Hence a generalized crack damage threshold is proposed in the present study based on the characteristics of Rn emission during the loading process, for recognizing the critical point of rock fracture.
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