Heterogeneity of Parent Rocks and Its Constraints on Geochemical Criteria in Weathering Crusts of Carbonate Rocks

Owing to the low contents of their acid-insoluble components, carbonate rocks tend to decrease sharply in volume in association with the formation of weathering crust. The formation of a 1 m-thick weathering crust would usually consume more than ten meters to several tens of meters of thickness of parent rocks. The knowledge of how to identify the homogeneity of parent rocks is essential to understand the formation mechanism of weathering crust in karst regions, especially that of thick-layered red weathering crust. In this work the grain-size analyses have demonstrated that the three profiles studied are the residual weathering crust of carbonate rocks and further showed that there objectively exists the heterogeneity of parent rocks in the three studied weathering crusts. The heterogeneity of parent rocks can also be reflected m geochemical parameters of major elements, just as the characteristics of frequency plot of grain-size distribution. Conservative trace element ratios Zr/Hf and Nb/Ta are proven to be unsuitable for tracing the heterogeneity of parent rocks of weathering crust, but its geochemical mechanism is unclear. The authors strongly suggest in this paper that the identification of the homogeneity of parent rocks of weathering crust in karst regions is of prime necessity.

ANALYSIS OF THE LOCALIZATION OF DAMAGE AND THE COMPLETE (STRESS-STRAIN) RELATION FOR MESOSCOPIC HETEROGENEOUS ROCK UNDER UNIAXIAL TENSILE LOADING

The mechanical behavior of rock under uniaxial tensile loading is different from that of rock under compressive loads. A micromechanics-based model was proposed for mesoscopic heterogeneous brittle rock undergoing irreversible changes of their microscopic structures due to microcrack growth. The complete stress-strain relation including linear elasticity, nonlinear hardening,rapid stress drop and strain softening was obtained. The influence of all microcracks with different sizes and orientations were introduced into the constitutive relation by using the probability density function describing the distribution of orientations and the probability density function describing the distribution of sizes. The influence of Weibull distribution describing the distribution of orientations and Rayleigh function describing the distribution of sizes on the constitutive relation were researched. Theoretical predictions have shown to be consistent with the experimental results.

ANALYSIS OF THE LOCALIZATION OF DAMAGE AND THE COMPLETE STRESS-STRAIN RELATION FOR MESOSCOPIC HETEROGENEOUS BRITTLE ROCK SUBJECTED TO COMPRESSIVE LOADS

A micromechanics-based model is established. The model takes the interaction among sliding cracks into account, and it is able to quantify the effect of various parameters on the localization condition of damage and deformation for brittle rock subjected to compressive loads. The closed-form explicit expression for the complete stress-strain relation of rock containing microcracks subjected to compressive loads was obtained. It is showed that the complete stress-strain relation includes linear elasticity,nonlinear hardening,rapid stress drop and strain softening.The behavior of rapid stress drop and strain softening is due to localization of deformation and damage. Theoretical predictions have shown to be consistent with the experimental results.

Application of wavelet to strength log from scratch test

This paper proposes a methodology to construct logs of rock strength from the cutting force signal recorded in scratch tests conducted in the ductile regime.The approach,which is based on the application of discrete wavelet transforms,recognizes the existence of two length scales[c and[r.The strength length scale[c represents the length over which it is meaningful to measure strength,while the repeatability length scale[r is related to the resolution at which the force signal must be observed to become insensitive to the stochastic micro-failure events triggered by the motion of the cutter.It is postulated that the original cutting force signal,assumed to be sampled at a high enough frequency,can be decomposed into a deterministic signal intrinsic to the rock and a stochastic one resulting from discrete rock failure events.The technique of multiresolution analysis based on the maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform is applied as a low-pass filter to the original cutting force signals so as to wipe out the high-frequency components associated with the stochastic rock failure events.A criterion to determine the optimum cutoff frequency of the low-pass filter and the corresponding repeatability length scale is discussed in terms of the correlation coefficients between different filtered signals.It is shown that the low-pass filtered signals obtained at the optimum cutoff frequency have two salient features:(i)repeatability over different tests conducted at the same depth of cut on the same sample,and(ii)variability along the cutting distance.The excellent repeatability reveals that the deterministic background trend of the original force signals is relevant to the rock strength property,and the variability of the background trend captures the spatial variation of the rock strength.

Influence of heterogeneity on rock strength and stiffness using discrete element method and parallel bond model

The particulate discrete element method(DEM) can be employed to capture the response of rock,provided that appropriate bonding models are used to cement the particles to each other.Simulations of laboratory tests are important to establish the extent to which those models can capture realistic rock behaviors.Hitherto the focus in such comparison studies has either been on homogeneous specimens or use of two-dimensional(2D) models.In situ rock formations are often heterogeneous,thus exploring the ability of this type of models to capture heterogeneous material behavior is important to facilitate their use in design analysis.In situ stress states are basically three-dimensional(3D),and therefore it is important to develop 3D models for this purpose.This paper revisits an earlier experimental study on heterogeneous specimens,of which the relative proportions of weaker material(siltstone) and stronger,harder material(sandstone) were varied in a controlled manner.Using a 3D DEM model with the parallel bond model,virtual heterogeneous specimens were created.The overall responses in terms of variations in strength and stiffness with different percentages of weaker material(siltstone) were shown to agree with the experimental observations.There was also a good qualitative agreement in the failure patterns observed in the experiments and the simulations,suggesting that the DEM data enabled analysis of the initiation of localizations and micro fractures in the specimens.

Evaluation and classification of rock heterogeneity based on acoustic emission detection

For deep rock mechanics and subsurface engineering,accurately characterizing and evaluating rock heterogeneity as well as analyzing the correlation between the heterogeneity and physical and mechanical properties of rocks are critical.This study investigated the characteristics of acoustic emission signals produced in the process of strong and weak phase damage to rocks.The failure mechanisms of the strong and weak phases were analyzed by performing Brazilian splitting tests on different metagabbros and granites.The strong-weak phase ratio of the rocks and the uniformity of their spatial distribution were characterized.Test results show that as the feldspar develops,the strong-phase ratio of the metagabbro increases.However,the spatial distribution of feldspar minerals in the metagabbro becomes less uniform.The mineral spatial distribution uniformity in the altered granite is good;however,its strong-phase ratio is low.Furthermore,the strong-phase ratio of the typical granite is high;however,its mineral spatial distribution uniformity is poor.Moreover,uniaxial and triaxial test results show that the peak strength and elastic modulus of the rocks are related to the strong-weak phase ratio and mineral spatial distribution uniformity of the rocks.This study provides a new analytical method for the mechanical evaluation of deep rocks.

Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based hydraulic fracture model

Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most important techniques for enhancing oil/gas production.The permeability-based hydraulic fracture(PHF)model,which is based on the smeared-crack method and considers the interaction between the pore pressure and solid phase,is adopted in the present study for a fully-coupled simulation of the hydraulic fracture in a heterogeneous rock formation.The level set method(LSM),which is used to describe the distribution of material properties of heterogeneous rocks,is coupled with the PHF model.Using the coupled PHF–LSM model,a series of finite element method(FEM)simulations are carried out to investigate the characteristics of a hydraulic fracture(e.g.,the breakdown pressure and fracture propagation)in heterogeneous rocks.Three types of heterogeneous rocks are examined:layered rock,rock with distributed inclusions,and rock with random spatial variations in the material properties.The results of the numerical simulations show that the coupled PHF–LSM model can describe the material interface without changing the FEM mesh used to discretize the physical domain.Further,the model effectively simulates hydraulic-fracturing problems for various heterogeneous rocks.

The Three-Stage Model Based on Strain Strength Distribution for the Tensile Failure Process of Rock and Concrete Materials

A three-stage model is introduced to describe the tensile failure process of rock and concrete materials.Failure of the material is defined to contain three stages in the model,which include elastic deformation stage,body damage stage and localization damage stage.The failure mode change from uniform body damage to localization damage is expressed.The heterogeneity of material is described with strain strength distribution.The fracture factor and intact factor,defined as the distribution function of strain strength,are used to express the fracture state in the failure process.And the distributive parameters can be determined through the experimental stress-strain curve.