Brittle failure in compression: splitting faulting and brittle-ductile transition

Abstract The micromechanics of brittle failure in compression and the transition from brittle to ductile failure, observed under increasing confining pressures, are examined in the light of existing experimental results and model studies. First, the micromechanics of axial splitting and faulting is briefly reviewed, certain mathematical models recently developed for analysing these failure modes are outlined, and some new, simple closed-form analytic solutions of crack growth in compression and some new quantitative model experimental results are presented. Then, a simple two-dimensional mathematical model is proposed for the analysis of the brittle—ductile transition process, the corresponding elasticity boundary-value problem is formulated in terms of singular integral equations, the solution method is given, and numerical results are obtained and their physical implications are discussed. In addition, a simple closed-form analytic solution is presented and, by comparing its results with those of the exact formulation, it is shown that the analytic estimates are reasonably accurate in the range of the brittle response of the material. Finally, the results of some laboratory model experiments are reported in an effort to support the mathematical models.