• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.151-159
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• 2018

Annually, the global production of construction aggregates reaches over 40 billion tons, making aggregates the largest mining sector by volume and value. Currently, the aggregate industry is shifting from sand to hard rock as a result of legislation limiting the extraction of natural sands and gravels. A major implication of this change in the aggregate industry is the need for understanding rock fragmentation and energy absorption to produce more cost-effective aggregates. In this paper, we focused on incorporating dynamic rock and soil mechanics to understand the effects of loading rate and water saturation on the rock fragmentation and energy absorption of three different sandstones (Red, Berea and Buff) with different pore sizes. Rock core samples were prepared in accordance to the ASTM standards for compressive strength testing. Saturated and dry samples were subsequently prepared and fragmented via fast and dynamic compressive strength tests. The particle size distributions of the resulting fragments were subsequently analyzed using mechanical gradation tests. Our results indicate that the rock fragment size generally decreased with increasing loading rate and water content. In addition, the fragment sizes in the larger pore size sample (Buff sandstone) were relatively smaller those in the smaller pore size sample (Red sandstone). Notably, energy absorption decreased with increased loading rate, water content and rock pore size. These results support the conclusion that rock fragment size is positively correlated with the energy absorption of rocks. In addition, the rock fragment size increases as the energy absorption increases. Thus, our data provide insightful information for improving cost-effective aggregate production methods.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.345-352
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• 2022

When rock burst occurs, the damaged coal, rock and other fragments can be ejected to the roadway at a speed of up to 10 m/s. It is extremely harmful to personnel and mining equipment, and seriously affects the mining activities. In order to study the energy evolution characteristics, especially kinetic energy, in the process of rock mass failure, this paper first analyzes the energy changes of the rock in different stages under uniaxial compression. The formula of the kinetic energy of rock sample considering the energy from the indenter of the testing machine is obtained. Then, the uniaxial compression tests with different stiffness ratios of the indenter and rock sample are simulated by numerical simulation. The kinetic energy U_d, elastic strain energy U_e, friction energy U_f, total input energy U and surface energy U_θ of crack cracking are analyzed. The results show that: The stiffness ratio has influence on the peak strength, peak strain, U_d, U_e, U_θ, U_f and U of rock samples. The variation trends of strength, strain and energy with stiffness are different. And when the stiffness ratio increases to a certain value, if the stiffness of the indenter continues to increase, it will have no longer effect on the rock sample.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.144-156
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• 1996

The deformation behaviors under uniaxial compressive cyclic loading were investigated for fresh rocks and freeze-thaw cycled samples. The Pocheon granite which is one of the most popular building stone in Korea was selected for tests. 0.5 Hz and 50% of dynamic strength were used as test conditions for frequency and fatigue span, respectively. For freezethaw procedure, sample were frozen for 3 hours under the temperature of -2$0^{\circ}C$ and then followed 3 hours thawing under the temperature of +2$0^{\circ}C$. Twenty seven samples were used as untreated and seventy three for freeze-thaw samples. No failure occurred up to 15000 cycles at the stress level of 60% of dynamic strength, indicating that the lowest strees level for fatigue failure may be around 60% of dynamic strength. Permanent strain and damping capacity curves show that there were three stages when rock behaves like under creep. Young's moduli were increased and Possion's ratios were decreased with the increase of the number of cycles. Possion's ratios varied more rapidly than Young's moduli did with the increase of the number of cycles. This may represent that most microcracks developed by fatigue stress are parallel to the axis of loading. The deformation behavior of freeze-thaw cycled samples were almost the same as that of untreated samples. However, the result of freeze-thaw cycled samples showed lower regression constant, indicating that the physical durability of rock is much lowered because of cyclic temperature variation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.821-832
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• 2008

The hazard warning levels are necessary for the rational design and safety construction of underground space, as mountain and urban tunnel. Sakurai provided the hazard warning levels for assessing the stability of tunnels using the critical strain of rock mass, which is defined as a ratio between uni-axial compressive strength and the Young's modulus. The concept of critical strain guidelines is introduced in this study for the assessment of tunnel safety during excavation. Moreover, in this paper, the critical strain properties of sedimentary rock in Korea has investigated and analysed in detail by Lab. test, as the uniaxial and triaxial compression tests. Finally, critical strain properties of sedimentary rock on uniaxial and triaxial stress condition is discussed the relationship of failure strain values, uniaxial and triaxial compression strengths, confining pressure and Young's modulus.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.241-247
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• 2019

In this paper the effect of bedding layer on the failure mechanism of rock in direct shear test has been investigated using particle flow code, PFC. For this purpose, firstly calibration of pfc2d was performed using Brazilian tensile strength. Secondly direct shear test consisting bedding layer was simulated numerically. Thickness of layers was 10 mm and rock bridge length was 10 mm, 40 mm and 60 mm. In each rock bridge length, bedding layer angles changes from $0^{\circ}$ to $90^{\circ}$ with increment of $15^{\circ}$. Totally 21 models were simulated and tested. The results show that two types of cracks develop within the model. Shear cracks and tensile cracks. Also failure pattern is affected by bridge length while shear strength is controlled by failure pattern. It's to be noted that bedding layer has not any effect on the failure pattern because the layer interface strength is too high.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.167-178
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• 2003

Damage and overbreak of the remaining rock induced by blasting can not be avoided during tunnel construction which may result in either short-term or long-term tunnel instability. Therefore, in this paper, a methodology to take into account the effect of blast-induced damage in tunnel stability assessment is proposed. Dynamic numerical analysis was executed to evaluate damage and overbreak of the remaining rock for the most common blasting pattern in road tunnel. Rock damage was quantified by utilizing the damage variable factor which is adopted proposed in continuum damage mechanics. The damaged rock stiffness and the damaged failure criteria are used to consider the effect of rock damage in tunnel stability analysis. The damaged geological strength index of the damaged rock was newly proposed from the relationship between deformation modulus and geological strength index. Also the Hoek-Brown failure criteria of the damaged rock was obtained using the damaged geological strength index. Analysing the tunnel stability with the consideration of the blast-induced damage of remaining rock, it was found that the extend of plastic zone and deformation increased compared to the undamaged rock. Therefore the short-term or long-term tunnel stability will be threatened when the rock damage from blasting is ignored in the tunnel stability analysis.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.59-72
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• 2022

This study employed a 3-D numerical analysis based on the distinct element method to estimate the strength and deformability of a Cretaceous biotite granitic rock mass at Gijang, Busan, Korea. A workflow was proposed to evaluate the scale effect and the representative elementary volume (REV) of mechanical properties for fractured rock masses. Directional strength and deformability parameters such as block strength, deformation modulus, shear modulus, and bulk modulus were estimated for a discrete fracture network (DFN) in a cubic block the size of the REV. The size of the mechanical REV for fractured rock masses in the study area was determined to be a 15 m cube. The mean block strength and mean deformation modulus of the DFN cube block were found to be 52.8% and 57.7% of the intact rock's strength and Young's modulus, respectively. A constitutive model was derived for the study area that describes the linear-elastic and orthotropic mechanical behavior of the rock mass. The model is expected to help evaluate the stability of tunnels and underground spaces through equivalent continuum analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2015

In the slope stability analysis and design, Limit Equilibrium Method (LEM) and Shear Strength Reduction technique (SSR) are mainly used. Both methods are able to perform two and three dimensional analysis. SSR is considered to be more sensitive and more reasonable than LEM by many researchers. However, in practice LEM is still widely used because of the increase of analysis time and complexity of the model in SSR. In this study, three dimensional analysis of the protruding rock slope is performed by SSR in order to study the effects of protruding length using rock slope FLAC 3D. In this study, as results of analysis variations of the safety factor have been studied according to slope angle, slope height, the soil strength, protruding slope length projected variables. The results show that the factor of safety as more affected by the shapes of the protruding rock slope than the rock strength.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2004

Laboratory experiments were conducted in order to find effects of the intermediate principal stress of ${\sigma}_{2}$ on rock fractures and faults. Polyaxial tests were carried out under the most generalized compressive stress conditions, in which different magnitudes of the least and intermediate principal stresses ${\sigma}_{3}$ and ${\sigma}_{2}$ were maintained constant, and the maximum stress ${\sigma}_{1}$, was increased to failure. Two crystalline rocks (Westerly granite and KTB amphibolite) exhibited similar mechanical behavior, much of which is neglected in conventional triaxial compression tests in which ${\sigma}_{2}$ = ${\sigma}_{3}$. Compressive rock failure took the form of a main shear fracture, or fault, steeply dipping in ${\sigma}_{3}$ direction with its strike aligned with ${\sigma}_{2}$ direction. Rock strength rose significantly with the magnitude of ${\sigma}_{2}$, suggesting that the commonly used Mohr-type failure criteria, which ignore the ${\sigma}_{2}$ effect, predict only the lower limit of rock strength for a given ${\sigma}_{3}$ level. The true triaxial failure criterion for each of the crystalline rocks can be expressed as the octahedral shear stress at failure as a function of the mean normal stress acting on the fault plane. It is found that the onset of dilatancy increases considerably for higher ${\sigma}_{2}$. Thus, ${\sigma}_{2}$ extends the elastic range for a given ${\sigma}_{3}$ and, hence, retards the onset of the failure process. SEM inspection of the micromechanics leading to specimen failure showed a multitude of stress-induced microcracks localized on both sides of the through-going fault. Microcracks gradually align themselves with the ${\sigma}_{1}$-${\sigma}_{2}$ plane as the magnitude of ${\sigma}_{2}$ is raised.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.471-478
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• 2021

Water damage is one of the five disasters that affect the safety of coal mine production. The erosion of rocks by water is a very important link in the process of water inrush induced by fault activation. Through the observation and experiment of fault filling samples, according to the existing rock classification standards, fault sediments are divided into breccia, dynamic metamorphic schist and mudstone. Similar materials are developed with the characteristics of particle size distribution, cementation strength and water rationality, and then relevant tests and analyses are carried out. The experimental results show that the water-rock interaction mainly reduces the compressive strength, mechanical strength, cohesion and friction Angle of similar materials, and cracks or deformations are easy to occur under uniaxial load, which may be an important process of water inrush induced by fault activation. Mechanical experiment of similar material specimen can not only save time and cost of large scale experiment, but also master the direction and method of the experiment. The research provides a new idea for the failure process of rock structure in fault activation water inrush.