Characterizing fracturing of clay-rich Lower Watrous rock: From laboratory experiments to nonlocal damage-based simulations

Nicolas Guy (1) , Darius Seyedi (2) , François Hild (3)

1 BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)
2 SEMT - Service d'Etudes Mécaniques et Thermiques
3 LMT - Laboratoire de Mécanique et Technologie

The work presented herein aims at characterizing and modeling fracturing (i.e., initiation and propagation of cracks) in a clay-rich rock. The analysis is based on two experimental campaigns. The first one relies on a probabilistic analysis of crack initiation considering Brazilian and three-point flexural tests. The second one involves digital image correlation to characterize crack propagation. A nonlocal damage model based on stress regularization is used for the simulations. Two thresholds both based on regularized stress fields are considered. They are determined from the experimental campaigns performed on Lower Watrous rock. The results obtained with the proposed approach are favorably compared with the experimental results.

Mots clés: Weibull model; Fracture toughness; Crack network; Rock fracturing; Nonlocal damage

Domaines: Géologie appliquée; Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]

Nicolas Guy, Darius Seyedi, François Hild. Characterizing fracturing of clay-rich Lower Watrous rock: From laboratory experiments to nonlocal damage-based simulations. Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 2018, 51 (6), pp.1777-1787. ⟨10.1007/s00603-018-1432-2⟩. ⟨hal-01698500⟩