Predicting mechanical properties and ultimate shear strength of gypsum, limestone and sandstone rocks using Vipulanandan models

ABSTRACT

In this study, over 1000 data from the literature was used to characterize and compare the density, strengths, modulus, fracture toughness, porosity and the ultimate shear strengths of the gypsum, limestone and sandstone rocks. The compressive modulus and Mode-1 fracture toughness of the gypsum rock, limestone rock and sandstone rocks varied from 0.7 GPa to 70 GPa, and from 0.03 MPa.m^0.5 to 2.6 MPa.m^0.5  respectively. Vipulanandan correlation model was effective in relating the modulus of elasticity, fracture toughness with the relevant strengths of the rocks.  A new nonlinear Vipulanandan failure criterion was developed to quantify the tensile strength, pure shear (cohesion) strength and to predict the maximum shear strength limit with applied normal stress on the gypsum, limestone and sandstone rocks. The Vipulanandan failure model predicts the maximum shear strength limit was, as the Mohr-Coulomb failure model does not have a limit on the maximum shear strength. With the Vipulanandan failure model based on the available data, the maximum shear strengths predicted for the gypsum, limestone and sandstone rocks were 64 MPa, 114 MPa and 410 MPa respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Rocks
• strength
• fracture toughness
• failure model
• statistical analysis
• modeling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.