Statistical analysis of shear cracks on rock surfaces

J. A. Åström ()

The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, 2007, vol. 56, issue 4, 291-295

Abstract: A set of 3873 cracks on exposed granite rock surfaces are analyzed in order to investigate possible fracture mechanisms. The fracture patterns are compared with the Mohr-Coulomb and the Roscoe fracture models, which can be combined into a single fracture scheme. A third model for comparison is based on interacting `penny-shaped' micro cracks introduced by Healy et al. [Nature 439, 64 (2006)]. The former models predict a bimodal fracture angle distribution, with two narrow peaks separated by 60 ○ -90 ○ symmetrically on both sides of the direction of the largest principal stress, while the latter predicts a single broader peak in the same direction with standard deviation in the range 15 ○ -20 ○ . The crack length distributions seem consistent with numerical simulation, whereas the fracture patterns are Euclidean rather than fractal. The statistical analyses indicate that none of the models fully describe the fracture patterns. It seems that natural shear fractures easily become a complex combination of different fracture mechanisms. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2007

Keywords: 62.20.Mk Fatigue; brittleness; fracture; and cracks; 61.43.-j Disordered solids (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1140/epjb/e2007-00138-y (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eurphb:v:56:y:2007:i:4:p:291-295

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10051

DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2007-00138-y

Access Statistics for this article

The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems is currently edited by P. Hänggi and Angel Rubio

More articles in The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems from Springer, EDP Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().