Study on Rock Failure Criterion Based on Elastic Strain Energy Density

Abstract

Uniaxial and five conventional triaxial compression tests were conducted on sandstone to obtain the evolution laws of the input energy density, elastic strain energy density, and dissipative energy density. The input and dissipative energy densities increased with increasing axial strain; the elastic strain energy density increased with increasing axial strain at the pre-peak stage and decreased after the peak. According to the linear change rule between the peak elastic strain energy density and confining pressure, the energy density failure criterion of sandstone was established, and the criterion has high precision and few parameters, and the parameters have clear physical meaning. Moreover, the expression of the energy density failure criterion was similar to the classical Hoek-Brown criterion, but its adaptability was more extensive. The strength calculation results for seven different rocks under different confining pressures calculated using the energy density failure criterion were consistent with the experimental values, and the calculation error was smaller than that of the Mohr–Coulomb criterion and Drucker–Prager criterion, verifying the accuracy and applicability of the criterion.