Rate effect of rocks: Insights from DEM modeling

Rocks are subjected to different loading rates at different construction stages and engineering applications. The strength of rock usually increases with loading rate. This rate dependency is one of the time-dependent behaviors of rock, whereby the micro-mechanisms are believed to be the subcritical crack growth due to stress corrosions. However, no evidence is provided yet. This study investigated rate effects of rocks through a novel implementation of Parallel-Bonded Stress Corrosion (PSC) model in Discrete Element Method (DEM). Long-term microparameters in PSC are first calibrated through creep test. Then, a series of uniaxial compressive strength, direct tensile strength, and triaxial compressive strength tests are performed, with strain rates ranging from 1×10−7/s to 1×10−3/s. Results show that the uniaxial compressive strength is highly dependent on strain rates which quantitatively matches with the experimental data. At lower strain rate, more subcritical cracks propagate due to longer stress-corrosion reaction time, resulting in a lower strength. Besides, strain rate also influences the failure patterns in post-peak, with single failure plane at lower strain rates and multiple failure planes at higher strain rates. Rate effects are also observed in direct tensile strength tests, with similar rate of increase in strength and a transition in cracking pattern, which align with the experimental data, indicating tension-induced subcritical cracking is the unified underlying micro-mechanism of rate effects for both cases. However, in triaxial compressive strength tests, rate effects become less obvious with increasing confining pressure, consistent with experimental findings, as subcritical crack growth is suppressed in shearing processes.