Effects of specimen height and loading span on the fracture toughness of disc type rock specimens under three point bending

Date

2008

Author

Tez, Yaşar Burkay

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A relatively new fracture toughness testing method called Straight Notched Disc Bending (SNDB) was used before for fracture testing of Ankara Andesite and Afyon Marble cores. In this work to investigate the applicability of the new method to other rock types. With a preliminary notch of 10 mm, straight notched disc type specimens with a diameter of 75 mm were loaded by three-point bending loads. Investigation of effect of specimen height on the stress intensity factor and fracture toughness was carried out. Specimen heights (B) between 18 67 mm were tried for andesite and marble cylindrical specimens. Loading span, that is span/radius (S/R) ratio was changed between 0.6 - 0.9 for andesite specimens. Stress intensity factor for specimens was computed with ABAQUS program. Stress intensity factor was found to increase with increasing specimen diameter for a fixed span/radius ratio. Stress intensity factor decreased with increasing specimen height. Changing span was found to have no significant effect on fracture toughness of andesite. Fracture toughness was significantly lower for specimens with smaller height. The suggested testing height interval for this type of specimens was between height/diameter ratios of 0.49 0.64. Results were compared to the results obtained by a well-known specimen geometry named semi-circular bend specimens (SCB) under three-point bending. SCB tests produced lower values for fracture toughness for both rock types. Fracture toughness was 0.99 MPa√m for Ankara Andesite and 0.70 MPa√m for Afyon Marble.

Subject Keywords

Mining engineering.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12609496/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/18163

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Theses