Rock Dynamics and Applications State of the Art Zhao & Li (eds)

2013 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-00056-8

AE thresholds and compressive strength of different crystalline

rocks subjected to static and dynamic loadings
M. Keshavarz

University of Payam Nour, Faculty of Science, Zanjan, Iran

V.K. Dang

INSAUniversity of Lyon, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Villeurbanne, France

K. Amini Hosseini

International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology, Tehran, Iran

F.L. Pellet

INSAUniversity of Lyon, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Villeurbanne, France

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of a laboratory investigation to assess how
a particular rock type affects the AE thresholds during uniaxial compression test. The tests
were carried out on well crystallized and homogenous cylindrical gabbro and granite specimens using a servocontrolled compression device with a constant rate of displacement.
Micro-crack initiation and the failure process in granite and gabbro with different physical
and mechanical characteristics were investigated using acoustic emission and deformation
data. Three damage thresholds are recognizable from both sets of recorded data; the first one
occurs at about 2030% of the failure stress and the second occurs at approximately 70% of
the ultimate rock strength. Finally significant AE activity takes place as failure approaches
(95% of ucs). The main difference in the AE records from the two types of rocks is observed
in the first phase of the AE steps. The acoustic emission patterns in the rock correlate closely
with its stress-strain behavior. It seems, however, that the difference in porosity of the rocks
plays a major role in the first two AE steps. Additional dynamic tests were performed with
a Split Hopkinson Bar Pressure device on the granite specimens. These test results show a
substantial increase in rock compressive strength with the rate of loading.
1 Introduction
Crack initiation and growth in rocks during static and dynamic loading has been considerably
investigated in recent decades in order to study the failure process of stressed rocks. Several methods have been proposed, and used, to recognize crack initiation and damage thresholds, including
measuring elastic waves and rock resistivity changes, Infrared Radiation (IR), Acoustic Emissions
(AE) and rock deformation data. These parameters can be used for the long-term evaluation of the
stability of underground excavations or fault rupture (for earthquake prediction). Among these
methods the use of AE and rock deformation data are the most common for such purposes.
Bieniawski (1967) defined five stages of failure process based on deformation data including (1) crack closure, (2) linear elastic deformation, (3) crack initiation and stable crack
growth, (4) critical energy release and unstable crack growth, and (5) failure and post peak
behavior. Other researchers tried to identify precise thresholds by means of mathematical or
instrumental techniques. Application of a moving point regression technique (Eberhardt et
al. 1998), crack volume calculation (Martin and Chandler 1994, Hatzor and Palchic 1997,
Gatelier et al. 2002), visual inspection of the lateral and volumetric strain curves (Lajtai and
Dzik, 1996) are among the main methods that have been used to quantify more precisely the
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different stages of damage thresholds. Recently, combinations of these methods were developed to define the failure thresholds (Keshavarz et al. 2010). Due to the effect of the rock
characteristics on crack initiation, however, the results of these methods cannot be easily
generalized. Progressive degradation of rock parameters, such as porosity, elasticity modulus
and stiffness due to loading is another uncertainty that makes it difficult to determine the
thresholds based on deformation data, especially for high stress levels (Pellet et al. 2011).
In this research, the effect of rock type on AE and deformation data to delineate rock damage thresholds is investigated. AE technique was used to investigate the fracture nucleation
phase by AE source location (Lockner et al. 1991). AE studies have also been used to help
understand brittle failure of rock (Thomson et al. 2006). In addition, continuous AE records
in a combination with stress-strain curves were used to accurately determine the different
phases of rock damage (Chang and Lee 2004). In spite of recent studies on the application
of AE to determine rock damage characteristics, the effect of different rock types on the
recorded data were not considered sufficiently.
It is well known, from an engineering point of view, that the static and dynamic responses
of geomaterials are quite different (Selvadurai 1980, Singh et al. 1986). Despite the fact that
some investigations on the effect of the loading rate on damage initiation were highlighted
in the previous studies (Wu et al. 2012, Zhou et al. 2012), the dynamic response of rock is
not yet fully understood. The last part of this paper will present some preliminary tests performed under dynamic loading.
2 Experimental set-up and testing procedures
2.1 General characteristics of specimen
In this study, Lavasan granite from Iran and a gabbro from North Africa were selected for
laboratory investigations. The two rocks are relatively isotropic in texture and have distinctive
AE characteristics in laboratory test. The physical and mechanical properties of the granite
and the gabbro have already been studied in 3S-R laboratory (Keshavarz et al. 2010). The
mean grain sizes of granite and gabbro are 5 mm and 2 mm, respectively. Overall, cylindrical specimens, 45 mm in diameter and 100 mm in length were prepared from single blocks
of granite (20 specimens) and gabbro (10 specimens) for uniaxial compression tests. The
specimens were prepared based on the existing standards to have smooth and exactly parallel planes to make sure that the load is distributed equally in all surfaces of the sample.
The smoothness and the parallelism (with an end parallelism of 0.01 mm) of each sample
were tested using a V-block and displacement dial gauge (ISRM 2007). For evaluation of
geophysical and geomechanical parameters, a few conventional tests were carried out in the
laboratory and the results are presented in Table1.
2.2 Loading systems and AE set-up
A few uniaxial compression tests were performed on prepared specimens. The Schenck
press at Laboratoire 3S-R (Grenoble, France) was used as the loading system. The system is
Table1. The physical properties of Lavasan granite and gabbro from
North Africa.
Properties

Granite

Gabbro

Bulk specific gravity (g/cm3)

Porosity (%)
P-Wave velocity (m/sec)
S-Wave velocity (m/sec)
Poissons ratio
Youngs modulus [GPa]
Uniaxial Compression Strength [MPa]

2.65
1.1
4578
3204
0.27
45
125

2.95
0.5
6560
4078
0.20
88
225

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hydraulic, stiff, computer monitored and servo-controlled to ensure that the rate of displacement is controlled. The loading system consists of a testing machine, load cell, and controller
(Fig.1). Loading was performed with constant displacement at a rate of about 100m/min.
Electrical resistance gauges were used to measure the axial and lateral deformations. Three
Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDT) were also installed every 120 between two
pistons of the loading cell to check the potential bendingand to measure the axial strain.
In this study a MISTRA 2001 model IPC610BP-260F-PIII866MHz system was used for
data acquisition. The AE set-up was used for the AE monitoring in conjunction with standard preamplifiers (AEwin Users Manuel, 2002) and four broad-band transducers. The main
operating frequency range of the transducers is about 100600 kHz. The variations in coupling between the transducers and the specimen were also determined before each test using
the standard pencil-break test.
In order to determine the effect of the rate of loading on the strength of a rock, some dynamic
tests were performed on the Lavasan granite using a Split Hopkinson Bar Pressure (SHBP) set
up. The SHPB system is composed of two axial cylindrical bars (incident bar and transmitter
bar) and a striker launched by a gas gun. Figure2 gives a schematic diagram of the SHPB
device. A short cylindrical specimen of the granite was installed between the two main bars. The
bars, 50 mm in diameter and 1.5 meter in length, are fabricated from high strength steel.
The impact between the striker bar and the incident bar generates a compressive wave
(loading wave and unloading waves). Measurements of the deformation of the input bar
and the output bar give the deformation of the specimen. Therefore, the applied force can be
computed for different strain rates.
The average stress in the specimen can be expressed in terms of the forces applied on each
surface of the specimen. When the specimen is sandwiched between the pressure bars, forces
F1(t) and F2(t) are applied on the two extremities of the specimen whose diameter is noted Ds
(Fig.3). The average force on the specimen is given by:

FAVG (t ) =

F1(t ) + F2 (t )

2

(1)

Figure1. The Schenck Press (left); Specimen with LVDT array and AE monitoring transducers (right).

Figure2. Schematic of the Split Hopkinson Bar Pressure (SHBP) set up.

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Figure3. Sketch of the forces applied on the specimen.

Hence the average stress on the cylindrical specimen is given by:

AVG =

FAVG (t )

Ds2 /4

(2)

3 Discussion and results

3.1 Stress, micro-deformation and AE curves
The results of uniaxial compression tests on granite and gabbro specimens are presented in
Figures4 and 5 respectively. The cumulative AE energy parameter and stress versus deformations are included in the same figures. The energy rate of AE events was found to be quite
low until the applied stress reached nearly 30 percent of ultimate failure stress in granite and
18 percent of ultimate strength for gabbro. It was then followed by a small increase to reach
a second step at around 60 to 70 percent of the maximum strength of the particular rock.
Finally, near failure (90 to 95% of ultimate strength), a third step occurred with extreme
acoustic emissions. The three AE steps are comparable to crack initiation (ci), crack damage
threshold (cd) and uniaxial compression strength in the stress-deformation diagram presented by Bieniawski (1967).
In spite of the definitive effects of these three stages, the crack closure (cc) stage cannot be seen as clearly based on AE parameters. However, since this stage is not related
to crack generation, it is not surprising that it is not detectable based on AE measurements. The greatest difference in the AE records in the two rocks studied is the stress
level at the start of the first step. While the first step for granite normally begins at
around 30% of the maximum strength of the specimen, it is below 20% for gabbro. This
could be due to the lower porosity of gabbro compared to granite. In gabbro, with about
0.5% porosity, the closure point occurs sooner than in granite, which has a porosity of
approximately 1%.
3.2 The effect of dynamic loading on compressive strength
The characteristics and the mechanical properties of the granite specimens were measured in
laboratory tests under static loading (Table1). The average static Unconfined Compressive
Strength (UCS) is 125 MPa. At the beginning, the steel bars were tested without a specimen to determine their properties. Then, tests on the granite specimens were carried out.
The loading pulse was progressively increased from 100 kPa to 350 kPa. The specimen was
destroyed with the 350 kPa loading pulse. The measured signals showed that the dynamic
elastic modulus of the steel bar and the specimen were 73.6 GPa and 26.5 GPa, respectively.
From these results, it can be seen that the maximum deformation of the specimen increases
when the loading pulse value is larger (Fig.6). The maximum dynamic UCS was found to be
203 MPa, which is much higher than the static UCS (125 MPa).
This observation, which is consistent with previous studies, shows the importance of the
loading rate and therefore will give more information for blasting efficiency. More tests will
be performed in the future to extend this conclusion to other types of rocks.
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Figure4. Stress-deformation curves with volumetric strain (v) and accumulated AE energy for uniaxial compression test on a granite specimen. The stars on the volumetric strain curve delineate the damage thresholds.

Figure5. Stress-deformation curves with volumetric strain (v) and accumulated AE energy for uniaxial compression test on a gabbro specimen. The stars on the volumetric strain curve delineate the damage thresholds.

Figure6. Strain versus time for two different pulse pressures.

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4 Conclusion
In this study, the effect of rock characteristics on AE data was investigated in order to monitor the failure process in Lavasan granite and North African gabbro. Based on AE monitoring, three steps of AE activities are distinguishable; the first step occurs at about 20 to 30% of
failure stress and second occurs around 60% of ultimate rock strength. Finally extreme AE
activity takes place when approaching failure (95% of ultimate strength). The first two steps
are comparable to crack initiation (ci) and crack damage (cd) thresholds in the stress-strain
diagram that is given in Bieniawski (1967). By comparing the AE parameters with the stress
deformation data, it is found that AE records can be used to outline each step of the failure
process. However, the limits of the failure procedure in the stressdeformation curves are
not quite clear. The main difference in the AE records of the two types of rocks is related to
the first phase of the AE steps, which occur at 18% and 30% of ultimate strength for gabbro
and granite, respectively.
The preliminary dynamic loading tests performed on granite samples using the Split
Hopkinson Bar Pressure apparatus show a substantial increase in compressive strength with
loading.
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