Crack coalescence and failure behaviors in slate specimens containing a circular cavity and a pre-existing flaw pair under uniaxial compression

The flaws (fractures) widely existing in rock mass pose a threat on the stability of many underground cavities. This study aims at investigating the failure process of a cavity affected by adjacent flaws. A number of slate specimens containing a circular cavity and a pre-existing flaw pair were tested under uniaxial compression. Varied flaw configurations were obtained by changing the flaw inclination angle with respect to horizontal and the spacing between flaw pair and cavity. Three main types of cracks emanated from the pre-existing flaw tips, and played a dominant role in the failure process of cavity, comprising primary wing cracks (tensile cracks) and two types of secondary cracks (quasi-coplanar shear cracks and oblique shear cracks). The initiation and propagation of these cracks were highly dependent on the flaw pair configurations. When the pre-existing flaw pairs were non-parallel to the loading direction, (1) mostly, coalescence occurred both in the tensile and compressive stress concentration regions around cavity; (2) in most cases, the quasi-coplanar and oblique shear cracks were the predominant cracks leading to the coalescence between the compressive stress concentration regions of cavity and the pre-existing flaw pair tips. When the pre-existing flaws were parallel to the loading direction, the combination of inclined shear cracks and tensile cracks or inclined shear cracks only dominated the failure of cavity. The initiation angles of wing cracks, quasi-coplanar shear cracks and oblique shear cracks agreed well with the theoretical predictions by the maximum tangential strain criterion (MTSN), Mohr-Coulomb criterion (M−C) and maximum shear stress criterion (MSS), respectively.