Numerical simulation of the influence of grain size on the progressive development of brittle failure in yuen long marbles

M. R. Jiao, R. H C Wong, T. F. Wong, Kam Tim Chau, C. A. Tang

Research output: Journal article publicationConference articleAcademic researchpeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

It has long been recognized that the strength of brittle rocks decreases with the grain size. However, very few systematic investigation of this phenomenon has been made using numerical method. This paper presents the results of a numerical simulation using the Rock Failure Process Analysis code (RFPA2D) to investigate the effects of grain size on the uniaxial compressive strength and the failure behavior of Yuen Long marble. The Weibull distribution with two parameters (m that characterizes the strength heterogeneity, and σ0 that corresponds to the mean strength of an element) selected based on micromechanical basis is used in the RFPA 2D code for simulation. The simulated stress-strain curves of Yuen Long marbles with different grain sizes under uniaxial compressive condition agrees well with the experimental study. The progressive failure process was captured in the numerical simulations. Our simulations also reproduced the influence of grain size, with strength scaling approximately with the inverse square root of grain size, which is in agreement with the previous experimental study.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1511-1516
Number of pages6
JournalKey Engineering Materials
Volume261-263
Issue numberII
Publication statusPublished - 28 Jul 2004
EventAdvances in Fracture and Failure Prevention: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Fracture and Strength of Solids (FEOFS2003): Second International Conference on Physics and Chemistry of Fracture and Failure Prevention (2nd ICPCF) - Sendai, Japan
Duration: 20 Oct 200322 Oct 2003

Keywords

  • Brittle failure process
  • Grain size
  • Numerical simulation
  • Yuen Long marbles

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ceramics and Composites
  • Chemical Engineering (miscellaneous)

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