Inversion of the Volumetric Strain of Aquifer According to the Tidal Effect of Groundwater in North China

The change of the confined aquifer level reflects the pore pressure change,and the pore pressure change of the aquifer is closely related to the aquifer pressure. This paper uses the tidal response of the well water level data in the North China region to calculate the tidal factor of each well and extract the effective water trend information. Then,the volumetric strain of an existing confined aquifer well in the North China region is inverted,and the contour maps are plotted on a half-year scale from 2009 to 2012. Results show that it can reflect the state of stress and strain in deep crust to a certain extent in the North China region.

Entire deformational characteristics and strain localization of jointed rock specimen in plane strain compression

Shear band (SB), axial, lateral and volumetric strains as well as Poisson’s ratio of anisotropic jointed rock specimen (JRS) were modeled by Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua (FLAC). Failure criterion of rock was a composited Mohr-Coulomb criterion with tension cut-off. An inclined joint was treated as square elements of ideal plastic material beyond the peak strength. Several FISH functions were written to automatically find the addresses of elements in the joint and to calculate the entire deformational characteristics of plane strain JRS. The results show that for moderate joint inclination (JI), strain is only concentrated into the joint governing the behavior of JRS, leading to ideal plastic responses in axial and lateral directions. For higher JI, the post-peak stress-axial and lateral strain curves become steeper as JI increases owing to the increase of new SB’s length. Lateral expansion and precursor to the unstable failure are the most apparent, resulting in the highest Poisson’s ratio and even negative volumetric strain. For lower JI, the entire post-peak deformational characteristics are independent of JI. The lowest lateral expansion occurs, leading to the lowest Poisson’s ratio and positive volumetric strain all along. The present prediction on anisotropic strength in plane strain compression qualitatively agrees with the results in triaxial tests of rocks. The JI calculated by Jaeger’s formula overestimates that related to the minimum strength. Advantages of the present numerical model over the Jaeger’s model are pointed out.

Laboratory Test on Volumetric Characteristics of Saturated Sea Sand Under Cyclic Loading

The deformation of sea coast or sandy deposits caused by earthquakes can lead to catastrophic damages to various port structures. The volumetric deformation is mainly induced by densification of sand during the dissipation of excess pore water pressure created by cyclic loading. Based on laboratory test, the reconsolidation volumetric characteristics of saturated sea sand are investigated. The experiments are conducted with a newly developed multi functional triaxial test equipment. Two types of dynamic loads are applied to the samples to clarify different kinds of affecting factors. It is found that the reconsolidation volumetric strain is correlated not only to the excess pore water pressure and the maximum shear strain during the dynamic loading, but also to the effective confining pressure. A new formula is put forward to calculate the volumetric strain during reconssolidation.

Effect of height of rock specimen on strain localization, precursor to failure and entire deformational characteristics

Patterns of shear band, precursors to shear failure occurring in strain-softening stage, axial, lateral and volumetric strains as well as Poisson＇s ratio of plane strain rock specimens in compression for different heights were investigated by use of Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua（FLAC）. A material imperfection closer to the lower-left corner of the specimen was prescribed. For finer mesh, the imperfection was modeled by four null elements, while it was modeled by a null element for coarser mesh. FISH functions were written to calculate the entire deformational characteristics of the specimen. In elastic stage, the adopted constitutive relation was linear elastic; in strain-softening stage, a composite Mohr-Coulomb criterion with tension cut-off and a post-peak linear constitutive relation were adopted. Height of rock specimen does not influence shear band＇s pattern （including the thickness and inclination angle of shear band）. The slopes of the post-peak stress-axial strain curve, stress-lateral strain curve, lateral strain-axial strain curve, Poisson＇s ratio-axial strain curve and volumetric strain-axial strain curve depend on the height. Hence, the slopes of these curves cannot be considered as material properties. Nonlinear deformation prior to the peak stress is a kind of precursors to shear failure, which is less apparent for shorter specimen. For the same axial strain, lower lateral expansion is reached for shorter specimen, leading to lower Poisson＇s ratio and higher volumetric strain. The maximum volumetric strain of longer specimen is less than that of shorter specimen. The conclusions drawn from numerical results using finer mesh qualitatively agree with those using coarser mesh.

Deformation Characteristics of Hydrate-Bearing Sediments

The safe and efficient development of natural gas hydrate requires a deep understanding of the deformation behaviors of reservoirs.In this study,a series of triaxial shearing tests are carried out to investigate the deformation properties of hydrate-bearing sediments.Variations of volumetric and lateral strains versus hydrate saturation are analyzed comprehensively.Results indicate that the sediments with high hydrate saturation show dilative behaviors,which lead to strain-softening characteristics during shearing.The volumetric strain curves have a tendency to transform gradually from dilatation to compression with the increase in effective confining pressure.An easy prediction model is proposed to describe the relationship between volumetric and axial strains.The model coefficientβis the key dominating factor for the shape of volumetric strain curves and can be determined by the hydrate saturation and stress state.Moreover,a modified model is established for the calculation of lateral strain.The corresponding determination method is provided for the easy estimation of model coefficients for medium sand sediments containing hydrate.This study provides a theoretical and experimental reference for deformation estimation in natural gas hydrate development.

Strength and deformation behaviors of cemented tailings backfill under triaxial compression

It is of great significance for safety reason to obtain the triaxial compressive properties of cemented tailings backfill(CTB).The influence of cement content,curing age and confining pressure on strength and deformation properties of CTB was examined and discussed.Results indicate that the triaxial compressive and deformation behavior of CTB is strongly affected by the cement content,curing age and confining pressure.The increase in cement content,curing age and confining pressure leads to a change in stress−strain behavior and an increase in the axial strain at failure and post-peak strength loss.The cohesion of CTB rises as the curing age and cement content increase.However,the enhancement in internal friction angle is trivial and negligible.It should be noted that the failure pattern of CTB samples in triaxial compression is mainly along a shear plane,the confining pressure restrains the lateral expansion and the bulging failure pattern is dominantly detected in CTB samples as curing age length and cement content increase.The results will help to better understand the triaxial mechanical and deformation behavior of CTB.

Reaearch on Skempton’s coefficient B based on the observation of groundwater of Changping station

Based on isotropie linear poroelastic theory and under the undrained condition, we summarize three equations connecting the Skempton＇s coefficient B with the groundwater level. After analysis, we propose a method to calculate the Skempton＇s coefficient B according to the relationship between water level and tidal strain. With this method we can get the value of B without the earthquake occurrence, which can provide the high frequency waves for research. Besides, we can also get the in-suit Skempton＇s coefficient B without the experiment of rock physics. In addition, we analyze the observed data of Changping station recorded in groundwater monitoring network （abv., GMN） before and after the Wenchuan Ms8.0 with this method, and find out there＇s a slight change of the value of B after the seismic waves passed by, which implies that the propagation of seismic waves may have brought some variations to the poroelastic medium of the well.

Creep behavior and permeability evolution of coal pillar dam for underground water reservoir

Using goof as water storage space plays a vital role in the ecological environment and economic development of arid mining areas,while the rock strength and the stability of coal pillars in underground water reservoirs are closely related to creep process.In this work,triaxial creep-seepage tests were conducted for coal samples to develop new insights into the creep behavior and permeability evolution.The results showed that the creep deformation and permeability evolution of coal samples exhibit three stages,namely,the compaction hardening stage before the stress threshold,volumetric compaction stage,and volumetric dilatancy stage.The coal permeability decreases first and then increases with the creep strain and it is well correlated with the variation of volumetric strain.

Influence of volume compression on the unloading deformation behavior of red sandstone under damage-controlled cyclic triaxial loading

A reasonable evaluation of unloading deformation characteristics is of great significance for the effective analysis of deformation and stability of surrounding rocks after underground excavation.In this study,the damage-controlled cyclic triaxial loading tests were conducted to investigate the pore compaction mechanism and its influences on the unloading deformation behavior of red sandstone,including Young’s modulus,Poisson’s ratio,volumetric strain,and irreversible strain.The experimental results show that the increases of volumetric and irreversible strains of rocks can be attributed to the compaction mechanism,which almost dominates the entire pre-peak deformation process.The unloading deformation consists of the reversible linear and nonlinear strains,and the irreversible strain under the influence of the porous grain structure.The pre-peak Young’s modulus tends to increase and then decrease due to the influence of the unloading irreversible strain.However,it hardly changes with the increasing volumetric strain compaction under the influence of reversible nonlinear strain.Instead,the initial unloading tangent modulus is highly related to the volumetric strain,and clearly reflects the compaction state of red sandstone.Furthermore,both the reversible nonlinear and irreversible unloading deformations are independent of confining pressure.This study is beneficial for the theoretical modeling and prediction of cyclic unloading deformation behavior of red sandstone.

Numerical simulation of rock deformation during the mineralization of the Xiangshan uranium deposit, Jiangxi province, south China

The Xiangshan uranium deposit in Jiangxi province is one of the most important uranium deposits in China. The aim of our study is to obtain a better understanding of rock deformation and dilation associated with mineralization, to predict the most favorable locations of mineralization, and to assist with future mineral exploration in this deposit. On the basis of geological and structural data from previous studies, we have constructed a coupled deformation and fluid flow numerical model and simulated the faulting deformation and major mechanical factors controlling mineralization in the deposit. Particular attention has been paid to variations in regional stress, distributions of shear strain, volumetric strain and pore pressure. The relationship between the struc-tural/faulting movement and mineralization is obtained through analyzing the deformation state of fault zones. The results suggest that the mineralization is related to volumetric strain, shear strain and pore pressures. The locations displaying all these factors rep-resent the most favorable sites for mineralization. These model results are important for guiding the exploration of new uranium deposits in Xiangshan.

Research on relationship between leakage of incompressible fluid and pressure change in pipeline

In practical engineering,only pressure sensors are allowed to install to detect leakage in most of oil transportation pipelines,while flowmeters are only installed at the toll ports.For incompressible fluid,the leakage rate and amount cannot be accurately calculated through critical pressure conditions.In this paper,a micro-element body of the pipeline was intercepted for calculation.The relationship between radial displacement and pressure of pipe wall was studied based on the stress-strain equation.Then,the strain response of pipeline volume with pipeline pressure was obtained.The change in volume expansion of pipeline was used to characterize leakage of incompressible fluid.Finally,the calculation model of leakage amount of incompressible fluid was obtained.To verify the above theory,the pipeline expansion model under pressure was established by COMSOL software for simulation.Both simulation results and deduction equations show that the volumetric change has a quadratic parabolic relationship with the change of pipeline pressure.However,the relationship between them can be approximately linear when the pressure change is not too large.In addition,the leakage of incompressible fluid under the pressure of 0 MPa-0.8 MPa was obtained by experiments.The experimental results verify the linear relationship between leakage of incompressible fluid and the change of pipeline pressure.The theoretical and experimental results provide a basis for the calculation of leakage of incompressible fluid in the pipeline.

Deformation characteristics of coarse-grained soil with various gradations

By using large scale triaxial shearing apparatus,consolidated-drained shear tests were conducted on coarse-grained soil with different gradations.In order to describe their deformation rules,three main characteristics of tangent Poisson ratio curves were summarized and the reason was revealed by dividing the movement of soil particles into two kinds: the movement of fine particles and the movement of coarse particles.Then,a volumetric strain expression and a tangent Poisson ratio expression were put forward,and two defects of widely used Duncan-Chang model were fixed.Results calculated from them agree well with test results.There are three parameters,namely L,G and F,in this new model.Parameter L reflects the dilatancy of a specimen and L=4 can be used as a criterion to estimate whether a certain kind of soil has dilatancy quality or not.Parameters G and F relate to the initial slope of tangent Poisson ratio curves,and G=F=0 indicates a special situation which happens in dense granular material of the same diameter.Influences of various gradations on volume deformation are mainly reflected in parameter L which is smaller when there are more gravels in specimens.

A new mixed-mode phase-field model for crack propagation of brittle rock

Study on crack propagation process of brittle rock is of most significance for cracking-arrest design and cracking-network optimization in rock engineering.Phase-field model(PFM)has advantages of simplicity and high convergence over the common numerical methods(e.g.finite element method,discrete element method,and particle manifold method)in dealing with three-dimensional and multicrack problems.However,current PFMs are mainly used to simulate mode-I(tensile)crack propagation but difficult to effectively simulate mode-II(shear)crack propagation.In this paper,a new mixed-mode PFM is established to simulate both mode-I and mode-II crack propagation of brittle rock by distinguishing the volumetric elastic strain energy and deviatoric elastic strain energy in the total elastic strain energy and considering the effect of compressive stress on mode-II crack propagation.Numerical solution method of the new mixed-mode PFM is proposed based on the staggered solution method with self-programmed subroutines UMAT and HETVAL of ABAQUS software.Three examples calculated using different PFMs as well as test results are presented for comparison.The results show that compared with the conventional PFM(which only simulates the tensile wing crack but not mode-II crack propagation)and the modified mixed-mode PFM(which has difficulty in simulating the shear anti-wing crack),the new mixed-mode PFM can successfully simulate the whole trajectories of mixed-mode crack propagation(including the tensile wing crack,shear secondary crack,and shear anti-wing crack)and mode-II crack propagation,which are close to the test results.It can be further extended to simulate multicrack propagation of anisotropic rock under multi-field coupling loads.

Characteristic stress and strain precursor information for fine-grained granite during failure process under triaxial loading and unloading conditions

The unloading effect by excavation may cause irreversible and severe damage to the surrounding rock masses in underground engineering.In this paper,both conventional triaxial compression(CTC)tests and triaxial unloading confining pressure(TUCP)tests were conducted on fine-grained granite to study its triaxial compression failure processes due to unloading.Based on the crack volumetric strain(CVS)method,the crack axial strain(CAS)method and crack radial area strain(CRAS)method were proposed to identify the failure precursor information(including stress thresholds and axial strain at the initiation point of crack connectivity stage)during the rock failure processes.The results of the CTC tests show that the stable crack development stressσsd,unstable crack development stressσusd,and crack connectivity stressσct identified by the CAS method are 6%,74%–84%,and 86%–97%of the peak stress,respectively.For the TUCP cases,as the confining pressure increases,the stress thresholds,axial pressure at failure and axial strain at the start of the crack connectivity stage increase,while the time ratio of the crack connectivity stage to the entire unloading stage decreases.This indicates that fine-grained granite is prone to generate more cracks and leads to fail suddenly under high confining pressure.Furthermore,this new method demonstrates that the point at which the derivative of the radial crack area strain transitions from stable to a sudden increase or decrease is defined as the precursor point of rock failure.The results of axial strain at the starting point of the crack connectivity stage are very close to those predicted by the AE method,withβ1 no more than 11%.

Theory of numerical modeling of constitutive relation for geotechnical materials

Under the direction of the principle of interaction between plastic volumetric and shear strains, the general expression of constitutive relation for geotechnical materials has been derived within the framework of irreversible thermo- dynamics. The constitutive modeling, in fact, is an inverse problem that belongs to the medium inverse problems of model identification, which is expressed as a reversion of coefficient of differential equation. Thus the constitutive modeling of geotechnical materials will become the reversion of coefficient functions of the general expression of constitutive relation, which is carried out in the stress field （p,q） by means Of numerical techniques, so that is called numerical modeling. Applying the numerical modeling, a number of plasticity-based models for clay and sand have been obtained, which are able to characterize the fundamental features of deformation for geotechnieal materials. In addition, the approach of numerical modeling also can be applied to the situation of unsaturated soils by means of the Bishop＇s effective stress formula and Khalili＇s expression of effective stress parameter.

Numerical Analysis of the Soil Compaction Degree Under Multi-Location Tamping

Dynamic compaction (DC) is an efficient soil improvement technique. The previous numerical studies mainly focus on the soil response of single location tamping, but ignore the soil compaction degree under multilocation tamping. In this study, a numerical investigation of multi-location tamping in granular soils is carried out using three-dimensional (3D) finite element model (FEM). The behaviors of the granular soils are described by means of the viscoplastic cap model. The constitutive relationship of the soils is implemented into LS-DYNA and is integrated with 3D FEM for numerical investigation. Then utilizing the field data from the previous studies, we investigate the soil compaction degree at different stages by a case of two basic patterns, and discuss the cause of soil response. Lastly, we evaluate the effect of construction parameters on soil compaction. The simulation results show that the previous tamping affects the soil compaction degree beneath the adjacent tamping location, and the effect is greater near the side of previous location. Meanwhile, the soil compaction degree around the existing tamping crater weakens due to the adjacent tamping. Moreover, the rational selection of DC construction parameters can improve the soil compaction degree, and some hints on the effect of soil compaction are given. © 2017, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.

Modelling of fault reactivation mechanisms and associated induced seismicity in rocks with different elastic materials

The mechanical failure of fault plane during fluid injection can be conveniently approached by numerical methods,and the results can be applied in fault slip analysis to determine the corresponding magnitude of induced seismicity.During hydrofracturing,when faults are present and the fluid is injected into the fault,micro-seismic events are possible,although the magnitude is often somewhat larger than those associated with micro-seismic events produced from regular hydraulic fracturing because of the larger surface area available for fault rupture.This study considers the rate at which the changing elastic properties of materials influences the magnitude of seismic event during fault injection.The simulation is carried out under varying injection flow rates from 0.18 kg/s to 0.3 kg/s,and the thermo-hydromechanical(THM)model in FLAC3D is adopted.As the material elastic moduli increase significantly under isothermal injection,the resulted non-uniformity in the fault slip timing affects the magnitude of injection-induced seismicity.Rocks with lower moduli produced higher slip distance and seismicity during shear failure.However,in the coupled thermal case,the magnitudes of seismicity during injection are largely enhanced at lower elastic properties,which suggests that the energy of accumulated fluid pressure produces a larger rupture and longer slip displacement in cold injection than in the isothermal case.The resulting volumetric strain,both in the fault zone and in the matrix,is higher in lower moduli,meanwhile,it is much developed in non-isothermal injection as a result of the rock's response to the sum effect of thermal strain and the stress-induced strain.