Instantaneous stress release in fault surface asperities during mining-induced fault-slip

Fault-slip taking place in underground mines occasionally causes severe damage to mine openings as a result of strong ground motion induced by seismic waves arising from fault-slip. It is indicated from previous studies that intense seismic waves could be generated with the shock unloading of fault surface asperities during fault-slip. This study investigates the shock unloading with numerical simulation. A three-dimensional （3D） numerical model with idealized asperities is constructed with the help of discrete element code 3DEC. The idealization is conducted to particularly focus on simulating the shock unloading that previous numerical models, which replicate asperity degradation and crack development during the shear behavior of a joint surface in previous studies, fail to capture and simulate. With the numerical model, static and dynamic analyses are carried out to simulate unloading of asperities in the course of fault-slip. The results obtained from the dynamic analysis show that gradual stress release takes place around the center of the asperity tip at a rate of 45 MPa/ms for the base case, while an instantaneous stress release greater than 80 MPa occurs near the periphery of the asperity tip when the contact between the upper and lower asperities is lost. The instantaneous stress release becomes more intense in the vicinity of the asperity tip, causing tensile stress more than 20 MPa. It is deduced that the tensile stress could further increase if the numerical model is discretized more densely and analysis is carried out under stress conditions at a great depth. A model parametric study shows that in-situ stress state has a significant influence on the magnitude of the generated tensile stress. The results imply that the rapid stress release generating extremely high tensile stress on the asperity tip can cause intense seismic waves when it occurs at a great depth.

On the stress–strain states of cellular materials under high loading rates

A virtual Taylor impact of cellular materials is analyzed with a wave propagation technique, i.e. the Lagrangian analysis method, of which the main advantage is that no pre-assumed constitutive relationship is required. Time histories of particle velocity, local strain, and stress profiles are calculated to present the local stress-strain history curves, from which the dynamic stress-strain states are obtained. The present results reveal that the dynamic-rigid-plastic hardening （D-R-PH） material model introduced in a previous study of our group is in good agreement with the dynamic stress-strain states under high loading rates obtained by the Lagrangian analysis method. It directly reflects the effectiveness and feasibility of the D-R-PH material model for the cellular materials under high loading rates.