Load-Bearing Capacity of Rock Beams

The paper describes the experimental data on bending fracture of beams made of rocks and geomaterials. The author proposes to determine the load-bearing capacity of beams using a model of materials with strength differential effect. In bending tests of rocks and heterogeneous materials with a high ratio of compressive strength to tensile strength, it is suggested to use the elastic stress distribution in the compression zone and the elastic-plastic stress in the tension zone. The calculated and measured load-bearing capacities of beams are compared. Statistical processing of the obtained results proves high efficiency of the proposed model. It is shown that the increase in the bending strength to tensile strength ratio is the characteristic of rocks which behave plastically in fracture.