The Propagation Behavior of Collinear Cracks under Compression

Abstract

In this paper, brittle materials with three collinear discrete cracks under compression have been studied, and a corresponding fracture condition has been proposed. In order to exam the effectiveness of the fracture condition and investigate the factors that control crack initiation and propagation, experiment study by using cement mortar and sandstone specimens with three collinear cracks has been implemented, and the effects of crack orientations, the distance between two cracks and the confining stresses have been investigated. The test results agree well with the fracture condition proposed in this paper.