Micro-mechanical modeling of the macro-mechanical response and fracture behavior of rock using the numerical manifold method

A micro-mechanical based numerical manifold method (NMM) is proposed in this study to investigate the micro-mechanisms underlying rock macroscopic response and fracture processes. The Voronoi tessellation technique is adopted to create randomly-sized polygonal rock micro-grains. A rock micro-grain based broken criterion is proposed and a corresponding grain breaking technique is developed. To better represent the contact behavior of rock grain bonds, a cohesive fracture model that considers tensile, shear and compressive behaviors together, is adopted to interpret the failure of rock grain bonds. The developed program is first validated by reproducing biaxial tests of Transjurane sandstone. Finally, the influences of micro-parameters on the rock macroscopic response and failure modes are investigated. The results show that the developed micro-based model can mimic the deformation and failure characteristics of the test closely. A parameter study shows that the grain contact cohesion has significant effects on the model uniaxial compressive strength. The fracture process and failure mode of rock are dependent on the ratio of grain contact shear stiffness to normal stiffness. With the increase of the contact stiffness ratio, the failure mode of rock under uniaxial compression changes from a diffuse pattern to a concentrated shear band.