Mechanical properties and constitutive model of deep marble under alternating creep-fatigue action

Given the time dependence and susceptibility to disturbance of deep rocks, this paper analyzes mechanical properties, acoustic emission (AE) signals, and pore radius distribution characteristics of deep marble under alternating creep-fatigue (ACF) action at different confining pressures by experiment and theoretical analysis. The results show that: (1) the alternation of creep and fatigue accelerates the rock damage, and the number of alternations increases with the increasing confining pressure. (2) Strain increments exhibit a pattern of first decreasing and then increasing, and they undergo a transformation from “V”-type to “U”-type with the increase of confining pressure. (3) The AE ringing count is mainly generated in the fatigue segment. The radius of large pores inside the rock is constrained by the confining pressure. (4) The ACF constitutive model is established, where model parameters show a nonlinear decreasing trend of the power exponential function with the strain increment.