Monitoring in situ stress/strain behaviour during plastic yielding in polymineralic rocks using neutron diffraction

Attempts to use rock deformation experiments to examine the elastic and plastic behaviour of polymineralic rocks are hampered by the fact that usually only whole sample properties can be monitored as opposed to the separate contribution of each phase. To circumvent this difficulty, room-temperature, uniaxial compression experiments were performed in a neutron beam-line on a suite of calcite + halite samples with different phase volume proportions. By collecting diffraction data during loading, the elastic strain and hence stress in each phase was determined as a function of load to bulk strains of 1–2%. In all cases, the calcite behaved elastically while the halite underwent plastic yielding. During the fully elastic part of the deformation, the composite elastic properties and the within-phase stresses are well-described both by recent shear lag models and by analyses based on Eshelby's solution for the elastic field around an ellipsoidal inclusion in a homogeneous medium. After the onset of yielding, the halite in situ stress/total strain curve may be reconstructed using the rule of mixtures. At calcite contents of greater than 30%, the in situ halite response may be significantly weaker or stronger than that obtained at lesser calcite contents. The results highlight the potential that such techniques offer for developing an explicitly experimental approach for determining the influence of microstructural variables on the mechanical properties of polymineralic rocks.

► Neutron diffraction is used to monitor the deformation of calcite + halite composites.
► The measured elastic properties agree well with shear lag and Eshelby-type analyses.
► The importance of load transfer during plastic yielding is emphasized.
► In situ stress/strain curves are recovered for the weak phase during plastic yielding.