JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS

JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS

Application of Numerical Simulation to Estimate Stress Damage Thresholds in Some Types of Sandstones

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Rock Mechanics Division, School of Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Mining Engineering, Hamedan University of Technology. Hamedan, Iran
3 School of Mining Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
4 Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran
Abstract
Identifying the stress levels required to initiate and propagate microcracks induced by stress in brittle rock masses plays a fundamental role in predicting the long-term behavior of the rock mass surrounding underground excavations. Spalling strength can be estimated by determining the crack initiation stress (σci) and crack damage stress (σcd) levels derived from uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) tests. This study utilizes particle flow code (PFC2D) software to estimate the stress damage thresholds. To this end, numerical modeling of five types of sandstone was performed using the flat joint model (FJM) within the PFC environment. To evaluate the validity of the models, the simulation results were compared with laboratory data. Based on the analyses, the ratio of crack initiation stress (σci) to UCS in the numerical models ranged from 0.39 to 0.55, indicating that microcracks begin to form within this stress range. Moreover, the crack damage stress (σcd) thresholds in the numerical models were determined as 85, 63, 126, 114, and 149 MPa for the five models, corresponding to 0.85 to 0.93 of the UCS of the sandstone samples.
Keywords
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