Abstract
Characterization of the mechanical properties of cracked rock masses is essential for ensuring the long-term stability of the engineering environment. This paper is aimed at studying the relationship between the strength characteristics of specimen and the angle of precrack, as well as the interaction of cracks under uniaxial compression. To this end, two sandstone specimens, distinguished with a single and three precracks, were built using the PFC software. For the former case, both the peak strength and elastic modulus increase to a peak value as the crack angle α gets closer to the forcing (loading) direction. For the latter case, the strength experiences a trend of increasing-maintaining trend as the crack angle α gets closer to the forcing direction, and the elastic moduli are barely affected. For the specimens containing a single precrack, their crack numbers increased approximately in a one-step or two-step stair pattern with increasing axial strain; whereas for the specimens containing three cracks, their crack numbers all showed a multistep growth trend. Furthermore, the failure mode of the specimen is closely related to the precrack angle. However, if the precrack distribution does not affect the original crack propagation path, it will hardly affect the mechanical properties of the specimen.
Highlights
Rock is widely distributed on the earth’s surface
The main conclusions are as follows: (1) For the one-crack specimens, the peak strength and elastic modulus continuously increase as the crack angle α is more aligning with the forcing direction
For the three-crack specimens, a similar pattern was observed for the strength behavior, i.e., with higher strength as α gets closer to the forcing direction
Summary
Rock is widely distributed on the earth’s surface. There are defects such as cracks inside the rock which are induced by thermal stress, erosion, earthquakes, human engineering disturbances, etc. The existence of cracks reduces the material strength of the rock and accelerates the damage process, which poses safety hazards to the construction of slopes and underground projects [2, 5, 7, 8]. It is of great significance to study the strength characteristics of cracked specimens and the interaction of multiple cracks within the specimen
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