The instability of the pillar was discussed based on the potential energy principle and the cusp catastrophe theory, and a simplified mechanical model of the pillar was established considering the mining effect. The necessary-sufficient conditions, the jump value of displacement of pillar and the released energy expressions were deduced. The results show that the instability of the pillar is related to the properties of the rock, the external force and the relative stiffness of the elastic area to the plastic area. The instability of system is like to occur with the enlarging of the softening area or the decreasing of E/λ. The calculation done shows that the estimated results correspond to practical experience.
Subcritical crack growth of double torsion specimens made of marble was studied using Instron1342 type electro hydraulic servo test machine. The relations of the mode-I stress intensity factor KI versus the subcritical crack growth velocity V and the fracture toughness KIC were obtained by the double torsion constant displacement load relaxation method. The behavior of subcritical crack growth was analyzed. The results show that lgKI-lgV relations of marble measured by this method accord with linear rule, i.e. the relations between subcritical crack growth velocity V and stress intensity factor KI have a power law, which is in good agreement with Charles theory. The testing results provide a basis for time-dependency of rock engineering stability.
A new specimen geometry-the double edge-cracked Brazilian disk and a relevant fracture analysis byweight function method are proposed for the investigation of rock fracture caused by compression-shear loading. Notonly can the mixed mode fracture with any ratio of KⅠ/KⅡ be achieved, but also the pure mode Ⅱ crack extensioncan be obtained. The combined mode fracture analysis for this geometry shows that diametral compression in the far-field can induce a compression-shear stress state in the singular stress field ahead of crack tips. Experimental investi-gations conducted on marble specimens show that the pure mode Ⅱ crack extension can be obtained when the dimen-sionless crack length a＞0.7 and the inclined crack angle 5°≤ψ≤40°. Normalized mode Ⅰ and mode Ⅱ stress inten-sity factors decrease from -0.45 and 2.47 at ψ=5° to -1.65 and 1.52 at ψ=40°, respectively. The strains at threepoints of specimen are also measured in order to investigate the influence of stress singularity on initial crack exten-sion. The results show that the principal orientations of strain at three points are very stable in the loading process.The derived formulae are quite explicit, and the specimen geometry is easy to fabricate and convenient to achieve thepure mode Ⅱ crack extension. Therefore, it can hopefully be used to obtain mode Ⅱ fracture toughness of rock.
