Geomechanical behaviour of biaxially loaded rock

The stress state at the boundary of any underground mine opening is that of plane stress. This planar state of stress can be simulated in laboratory by subjecting a cubic rock specimen to a biaxial loading condition. Thus, research on the behaviour of biaxially loaded rock is important for better understanding of the stability of mining fronts such as crown pillar skin, drift face or shaft floor.The objective of this research is to study the geomechanical behaviour of biaxially loaded rock. Three rock types were selected, namely limestone, granite and sandstone.The laboratory work was conducted using a newly developed, 500-tonne biaxial loading frame, that is equipped with a servo-controlled load and displacement system. Recently patented in China, the new biaxial loading frame is spatially symmetric and equally rigid in both directions. Steel brush platens and solid platens with and without MoS2 were developed to help examine the end friction effect on biaxial strength. It is found that the biaxial strength can decrease up to 26.7% with the increase of cubic specimen size from 75 mm to 150 mm. The biaxial strength increases by 29.3% with the increase of loading rate from 1 MPa/s to 10 MPa/s, for granite. The biaxial strength of granite specimen decreases by nearly 6% when either solid platens with MoS 2 lubricant or brush platens are used. A comparison of the sigma 1-sigma2 failure envelopes reveals that the shape of the envelope and the location of the peak biaxial strength are dependent on the rock type.Varying intensities of rock spalling generally initiate at the free faces of the specimen when sigma1 and sigma2 exceed sigma c/2. Ultimate failure occurs in the form of an out-of-plane shear failure, which splits the rock specimen into two or more wedges.It is shown that both Mohr-Coulomb and Hoek-Brown criteria underestimate the biaxial strength of the rock. The Drucker-Prager failure criterion appears to provide poor correlation with experimental results. A new empirical biaxial rock failure criterion for intact rock is derived and another, accounting for rock mass characteristics through the Geological Strength Index (GSI), is then proposed