Rock fracture under anti-plane shear (Mode III) loading

Abstract

Anti-plane punch-through shear test and anti-plane four-point bending test are used to study the crack initiation and propagation under anti-plane shear (Mode III) loading. The tensile and shear stresses at the crack tip are calcualted by finite element method. The results show that under Mode III loading the maximum principal stress σ₁ at crack tip is smaller or a little larger than the maximum shear stress τ_max. Since the tensile strength of brittle rock is much lower than its shear strength, σ₁ is easy to reach its critical value before τ_max reaches its critical value and thus results in Mode I fracture. The fracture trajectory is helicoid and the normal direction of tangential plane with the fractured helicoid is along the predicted direction of the maximum principal stress at the notch tip. It is further proved that Mode I instead of Mode III fracture occurs in brittle rock under Mode III loading. The fracture mode depending on the fracture mechanism must be distinguished from the loading form.

Keywords

Mode III loading / Mode I fracture / fracture mechanism / finite element method / rock

References

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