Numerical study on cracking behavior and fracture failure mechanism of flawed rock materials under uniaxial compression

Abstract The numerical approach is a vital means for evaluating the stability of flawed rocks. In this paper, the extended non‐ordinary state‐based peridynamics (NOSB‐PD) theory is employed to simulate the fracture process of rocks containing two pre‐existing flaws. Two stress criteria, including the maximum tensile stress criterion and the Mohr–Coulomb criterion, are implemented into the NOSB‐PD numerical method to respectively judge the tensile and shear failure of rock materials. The effects of inclination angles and ligament angles on the crack initiation and coalescence modes for flawed rocks are investigated based on the numerical results. The numerical results are in good agreement with the previous experimental results. The fracture mechanism of flawed rocks is revealed based on the evolutionary distribution characteristics of the maximum principal stress field and shear stress field obtained by the extended NOSB‐PD theory.