• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.30-37
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• 2020

In this study the split ring (SR) test was investigated for its applicability to the measurement of the tensile strength of rock specimen of NX size. The concept of the SR test is the same as the half ring (HR) test (Choi et al., 2019) except that the expected fracture plane is perpendicular to the loading direction. Because of this perpendicularity, however, it was believed that the SR test could be more accurate than the HR test. Like the HR specimen, the SR specimen is a curved prismatic bar with a uniform section. Appealing to a basic bending theory in strength of materials, the tensile strength for the special bar can be calculated analytically. Numerical simulations using LS-DYNA revealed, as expected, that the strength errors were 1% and 5% for the tensional and compressional SR tests, respectively, which were much lower than that (12%) of the HR test. To identify the performance of the two SR tests, laboratory experiments were conducted. The HR and Brazilian tests were also performed for comparison. The experiments showed that the ratios of the tensional and compressional SR to Brazilian strengths were 1.2~1.4 and 1.1~1.2, respectively, which are too small compared to empirical values in ordinary bend tests. Consequently, it is concluded that the SR test is not appropriate for use in tensile strength test of rock specimen of NX size. But the ratio of the HR to Brazilian strengths was within 1.7~2.0 for both the previous and present studies, showing a good consistency in their test results.