Mechanical behaviours of bedded sandstone under hydromechanical coupling

The combination of the dipping effect and hydromechanical(H-M)coupling effect can easily lead to water inrush disasters in water-rich roadways with different dip angles in coal mines.Therefore,H-M coupling tests of bedded sandstones under identical osmotic pressure and various confining pressures were conducted.Then,the evolution curves of stress-strain,permeability and damage,macro-and mesoscopic failure characteristics were obtained.Subsequently,the mechanical behaviour was characterized,and finally the failure mechanism was revealed.The results showed that:(1)The failure of the sandstone with the bedding angle of 45°or 60°was the structure-dominant type,while that with the bedding angle of 0°,30°or 90°was the force-dominant type.(2)When the bedding angle was in the range of(0°,30°)or(45°,90°),the confining pressure played a dominant role in influencing the peak strength.However,withinβ∈(30°,45°),the bedding effect played a dominant role in the peak strength.(3)With the increase in bedding angle,the cohesion increased first,then decreased and finally increased,while the internal friction angle was the opposite.(4)When the bedding angle was 0°or 30°,the“water wedging”effect and the“bedding buckling”effect would lead to the forking or converging shear failure.When the bedding angle was 45°or 60°,the sliding friction effect would lead to the shear slipping failure.When the bedding angle was 90°,the combination of the“bedding buckling”effect and shear effect would lead to the mixed tension-shear failure.The above conclusions obtained are helpful for the prevention of water inrush disasters in water-rich roadways with different dips in coal mines.

Mechanical behavior of sandstone during post-peak cyclic loading and unloading under hydromechanical coupling

This paper investigates mechanical behaviours of sandstone during post-peak cyclic loading and unloading subjected to hydromechanical coupling effect, confirming the peak and residual strengths reduction laws of sandstone with water pressure, and revealing the influence of water pressure on the upper limit stress and deformation characteristics of sandstone during post-peak cyclic loading and unloading.Regarding the rock strength, the experimental study confirms that the peak strength σ_(p) and residual strength σ_(r) decrease as water pressure P increases. Especially, the normalized strength parameters σ_(p)/σ_(pk) and σ_(r)/σ_(re) was negatively and linearly correlated with the P/σ_(3). Moreover, the Hoek-Brown strength criterion can be applied to describe the relationship between effective peak strength and effective confining stress. During post-peak cyclic loading and unloading, both the upper limit stress σ_(p(i)) and crack damage threshold stress σ_(cd(i)) of each cycle tend to decrease with the increasing cycle number. A hysteresis loop exists among the loading and unloading stress–strain curves, indicating the unloading deformation modulus E_(unload) is larger than the loading deformation modulus E_(load). Based on experimental results,a post-peak strength prediction model related to water pressure and plastic shear strain is established.

Hydromechanical behaviors of andesite under different stress states during fluid injection

Water reinjection into the formation is an indispensable operation in many energy engineering practices.This operation involves a complex hydromechanical(HM)coupling process and sometimes even causes unpredictable disasters,such as induced seismicity.It is acknowledged that the relative magnitude and direction of the principal stresses significantly influence the HM behaviors of rocks during injection.However,due to the limitations of current testing techniques,it is still difficult to comprehensively conduct laboratory injection tests under various stress conditions,such as in triaxial extension stress states.To this end,a numerical study of HM changes in rocks during injection under different stress states is conducted.In this model,the saturated rock is first loaded to the target stress state under drainage conditions,and then the stress state is maintained and water is injected from the top to simulate the formation injection operation.Particular attention is given to the difference in HM changes under triaxial compression and extension stresses.This includes the differences in the pore pressure propagation,mean effective stress,volumetric strain,and stress-induced permeability.The numerical results demonstrate that the differential stress will significantly affect the HM behaviors of rocks,but the degree of influence is different under the two triaxial stress states.The HM changes caused by the triaxial compression stress states are generally greater than those of extension,but the differences decrease with increasing differential stress,indicating that the increase in the differential stress will weaken the impact of the stress state on the HM response.In addition,the shear failure potential of fracture planes with various inclination angles is analyzed and summarized under different stress states.It is recommended that engineers could design suitable injection schemes according to different tectonic stress fields versus fault occurrence to reduce the risk of injection-induced seismicity.

Formulations of a hydromechanical interface element

A hydromechanical interface element is proposed for the consideration of the hydraulic-mechanical coupling effect along the interface.The fully coupled governing equations and the relevant finite element formulations are derived in detail for the interface element.All the involved matrices are of the same form as those of a solid element,which makes the incorporation of the model into a finite element program straightforward.Three examples are then numerically simulated using the interface element.Reasonable results confirm the correctness of the proposed model and motivate its application in hydromechanical contact problems in the future.

Groundwater flow through fractured rocks and seepage control in geotechnical engineering: Theories and practices

Groundwater flow through fractured rocks has been recognized as an important issue in many geotechnical engineering practices.Several key aspects of fundamental mechanisms,numerical modeling and engineering applications of flow in fractured rocks are discussed.First,the microscopic mechanisms of fluid flow in fractured rocks,especially under the complex conditions of non-Darcian flow,multiphase flow,rock dissolution,and particle transport,have been revealed through a com-bined effort of visualized experiments and theoretical analysis.Then,laboratory and field methods of characterizing hydraulic properties(e.g.intrinsic permeability,inertial permeability,and unsaturated flow parameters)of fractured rocks in different flow regimes have been proposed.Subsequently,high-performance numerical simulation approaches for large-scale modeling of groundwater flow in frac-tured rocks and aquifers have been developed.Numerical procedures for optimization design of seepage control systems in various settings have also been proposed.Mechanisms of coupled hydro-mechanical processes and control of flow-induced deformation have been discussed.Finally,three case studies are presented to illustrate the applications of the improved theoretical understanding,characterization methods,modeling approaches,and seepage and deformation control strategies to geotechnical engi-neering projects.

Assessments of the effects of various fracture surface morphology on single fracture flow: A review

Natural rock joint permeability deviates from the classic fluid flow governing equations due to the inher-ent fracture surface roughness(i.e.,contact points,spatial correlation,matching,varying aperture,iso-lated voids,infilling material,tortuosity and channellings)and engineering disturbance such as excavations.To improve the accuracy of fracture permeability evaluation,many efforts have been made in analytical,experimental,and numerical methods.This study reviews the modified mathematical gov-erning equations of fluid flow and classifies them based on different influencing factors,such as friction factor,aperture,tortuosity,inertia,and various in situ stress effects.Various experimental and simulation techniques for the coupled normal-and shear-stress flow problems were assessed,and their advantages and disadvantages were also analysed.Furthermore,different surface roughness descriptions and their impacts on mechanical and hydraulic behaviours were discussed,followed by the potential research directions for fracture flow problems.

Is Terzaghi's effective stress a stress variable under seepage conditions?

From the continuum mechanics perspective, an attempt was made to clarify the role of Terzaghi's effective stress in the theoretical analysis of saturated soil subjected to seepage. The necessity of performing a coupled hydromechanical analysis to solve the seepage-deformation interaction problem was illustrated by examining the equations of static equilibrium among the effective stress, seepage force, pore-water pressure and total stress. The conceptual definition of stress variable that satisfies the principles of continuum mechanics is applied in the coupled hydromechanical analysis. It is shown that Terzaghi's effective stress is in fact not a stress variable under seepage conditions, and the seepage force acting on the soil skeleton cannot be viewed as a body force. This offers a clue to the underlying cause of a paradox between the real Pascal's hydrostatic state and the hydrostatic state predicted by a class of continuum hydromechanical theories.