Cracking behavior and local stress characteristics around the opening surrounded by two intermittent joints: experiment and numerical simulation

In this research, the Strength and deformation behaviors, cracking process, and local stress evolution of sandstone specimens containing a circular opening and two joints (called H-J sandstone specimens in this study) were researched by experiment and numerical simulation (two-dimension particle flow code). The effect of different joint positions around the opening has been specifically studied by changing the ligament angle (β). The test results show that peak strength and peak strain firstly decrease then increase with the increasing β, while the peak strain presents an overall upward trend. Three types of coalescence failure patterns between the opening and joints formed, and the corresponding cracking process and acoustic emission (AE) characteristics are highly related to the ligament angle. Based on the micro-parameters calibration, a good agreement was achieved between experimental and numerical simulation. The numerical results show that the local stress evolution around the opening is highly corresponding to the cracking process. The microcracks initiation and propagation cause obvious stress fluctuations, drops or increasements of minimum principal stress, while the cracks coalescence results in obvious reduction of maximum principal stress and drops of stress-strain curve. It also be found that the stress distribution and magnitude around the opening tend to be closely related to both coalescence failure and strength characteristics of H-J specimens. Finally, the cracking mechanism between the opening and joints was revealed based on particle displacement fields. The results show that different cracking mechanism may cause different local stress changes, which finally determines the overall mechanical behavior of specimens.