Researches on Damage Evolution and Acoustic Emission Characteristics of Rocks

Mechanical parameters of the rock are important for the design of geotechnical, mining engineering, and petroleum reservoir projects. Many researches have suggested that the mechanical variables of rock specimens, such as compressive strength and elastic modulus, do not have a single fixed value. Uncertainty in the basic mechanical variables of the rock material can significantly affect the structural performance and safety. In this study, a series of compression experiments with acoustic emission have been performed on rock specimens. The damage evolution characteristics of the rock in the process of loading were studied, and the macromechanical behaviors were obtained at the same time. Distribution characteristics of the strength and elastic modulus as random variables are illustrated, and the statistical damage model is presented by the authors to formulate analytical constitutive relations for deformation behavior. The comparisons between predicted results and experimental data show that the statistical damage constitutive model could well reproduce the deformation process of rock materials.