An Investigation on the Fabric Type Dependency of the Crack Damage Thresholds in Brittle Rocks

Fabric-guided micro-fracturing phenomenon in brittle rocks and its effect on crack damage thresholds remains subject to continuing research. The available fabric in rocks can act as a motivator for nucleation and/or extension and interaction of micro-fractures in a preferred orientation, or as a suppressor for growth of micro-cracks in a given direction by different mechanisms such as compliance (stiffness contrast) or preferred orientation of minerals and their boundaries. While anisotropy of brittle rocks in terms of their mechanical strengths can play a significant role in the stability of underground openings, the understanding of the dependency of crack initiation (CI) and crack propagation (CD) thresholds on the available fabric in rocks can improve predictions of the extension and density of micro-fracturing in different directions in the walls of underground openings. To better understand the fabric-guided micro-fracturing phenomenon, and also to study the effect of fabric types available in brittle rocks on their anisotropic behaviour, four types of brittle rocks with different types of fabric are investigated in terms of crack damage anisotropy in this paper. The rocks that are chosen for this study are limestone from the Cobourg Formation, Queenston shale, Olkiluoto mica gneiss and Lac du Bonnet granite. For each rock type, CI and CD thresholds are identified from the unconfined compressive strength testing data. The mechanical behaviour of the four rock types are investigated at each damage stress level and the contributing factors to the isotropic or anisotropic behaviour of the rocks at different crack damage thresholds are discussed.