A proposed mechanism of rock failure and rockbursting

Le mecanisme fondamental de rupture violente de la roche Angenommener Mechanismus von Gesteinsbruch und Gebirgsschlag
ZOU DAIHUA, Department of Mining and Mineral Process Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada HAMISH D.S.MILLER, Department of Mining and Mineral Process Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

ABSTRACT: Sudden rock failure in the form of rockbursting has long been a problem in underground mines. The basic mechanism of this phenomenon is still unresolved. This paper describes the research work conducted at the University of British Columbia to study the basic mechanism of violent rock failure, and to identify reliable precursive behaviour. Acoustic emissions were tested from rock specimens, the rock failure mechanism postulated and the experimental results obtained are in agreement with measurements made in situ in a deep level South African mine. The shear failure mechanism proposed has been modelled and this numerical model allows rock tests and their associated acoustic emissions to be realistically simulated. RESUME: Les affaissements violents de roche ont ~t~ ~tudi~ de fa~on a identifier un comportement precurseur fiable. Un m~canisme de fracture de la roche a ete postul d'ap~s les emissions accoustiques d'echantillons de roche. Le m~canisme de cisaillement a ete modelise et il permet une simulatlon des essais de roche et des emissions acoustiques associ~es. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Um eine zuverlaessige Voraussage ueber Gesteinsbruch zu erhalten wurden im Test Bruchge~ raeusche gemessen. Der Mechanismus des Scherbruches ist ebenfalls im Modell untersucht worden und dies erlaubt eine realistische Simulation von Gesteinstests und ihre begleitenden Bruchgeraeusche. INTRODUCTI ON The phenomenon of rockbursts ha long be~n a pr?blem in underground mines. It has been assoclated wlth mining excavations throughout the world in all rock types and at all depths. As min~ng depth cont~nues to increase, this problem ~s becoming more se:lous. Despite the work of many researche:s, the basIc mechanism of this phenomenon is stIll unresolved. With the development of microseismic monitoring, . warning of impending rockbursts has been greatly Improved. However, the low reliability of this technique as a predictive tool has largely limited it to event location. The commonly faced problem is the failure without anomaly or an anomaly with no accompanying failure. Generally a rock burst can be described as a sudden release ~f strain energy stored in the rock mass, sometimes resulting in catastrophic failure and extensive damage to underground openings and.mining facilities. It is characterized by expulSIon of :ock in varying quantities from the surface of an openIng. This phenomenon usually happens instantly and without any visual warning. Once it happens it threatens miners' lives and gives rise to considerable operational problems in the mine. .' The rock mass is highly jointed and anlstroplc. Before excavation takes place, a stress field exists in the rock mass, known as the virgin str~ss . As ?n opening is excavat~d, the virgin st:ess fleld IS dlSturbed, resulting In stress redistrIbution around the opening. Close to the boundary of the excavation a zone of stress concentration is formed. If the maximum stress is less than the strength of the rock mass the structure will be stable. Otherwise, failure o~curs either by yielding or cracking. At the same time the stored strain energy which is proportional to the square of the stress, is released. If the energy release happens sUddenly,.t~e fai!ure will be violent . However, until today, Ilttle IS known about the way this energy release occurs. . This research work is intended to study the basIc mechanism of rock failure and rockbursting. We are trying to approach this problem from the very beginning, studying both the conditions under which a. burst is likely to occur, and the release of acoustIC 1357 energy prior to rock failure. 1. FAILURE MECHANISM OF ROCK MASS 1.1 Failure principle As a geological material, rock mass is generally jointed and anistropic. The failure process of rock mass is also complex. An examination of the failures of rock mass, such as of a pillar, or of the remnants of a rock specimen, shows that failure usually takes place along a surface. This surface makes an acute angle with the major loading direction. For an isotropic material, this surface can be determined on Mohr's circle, Figure 1[1J. However, this kind of ideal material rarely exists. The failure of rock mass will occur along the weakest surface, which may be a major fault, joint, or any other weakness when the shear stress on that surface reaches the corresponding shear strength. As can be seen, the failure of jointed rock mass will be controlled by the shear process.

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For intact rock, this principle of shear failure may not apply until a failure surface is formed. In this case, the failure is believed to initiate from local microfracturing, since even intact rock always contains microcracks. When a force is applied to a rock specimen, these microcracks initially close. Then the rock mass exhibits perfect elastic deformation under further load. As the stress reaches

some level, these cracks start to develop, or microfracturing initiates. This results in acoustic emissions that occur due to the vibration of rock particles in the immediate vicinity of the fracturing. These vibrations are extremely small. As the load continues to increase, the number of microfractures increases and fracturing propagates further. At first the fracture propagation is stable and fracturing can be halted by maintaining a constant load. When the fracture propagation reaches the unstable stage, the fracture process is self-sustaining because the energy required to maintain the crack propagation decreases. Even if the load is held constant, fractures will develop. Any increase of the load will accelerate the fracture propagation. Apparently the seismic event rate increases due to the intensive fracturing, but the increase of acoustic energy is not significant because the vibrations of rock particles remains low. Meanwhile, the released energy from crack extension increases with the crack length. When additional energy is available, the crack tends to fork in the weakest direction. The onset of forking represents a transition within the process of the unstable stage. Once this transition has taken place, successive forking will lead to coalescence of many fractures, forming macrofractures. Thus, the acoustic energy is expected to increase dramatically. These macrofractures will join together to form a surface on which the final failure takes place. From now on the shear principle controls the failure process. 1.2 Stick-slip in shear failure. During the shear process, once: the shear stress reaches the shear strength, slip begins. However, the behaviour of slipping varies with the loading conditions and the surface properties. In shear experiments. either stable sliding or stick-slip is observed. Generally, the phenomenon of stick-slip is expected to occur if the shear surfaces are very smooth or if the normal stress is'very high. [2,3] The stick-slip is of significance. During stick time, shear stress and potential energy gradually build up. When slip occurs, the shear force drops and the potential energy is released. If the slip takes place suddenly, the energy will be released very quickly, resulting in violent failure. The phenomenon of stick-slip has drawn great attention from seismologists and is considered as a mechanism of shallow earthquakes [4], esp~cially for those occurring along geological faults. The high stress field in the earth's crust tends to initiate relative movement along the fault. Once the potential energy exceeds the shear strength ofithe fault, stored energy is released by a sudden slip in the crust. A natural earthquake and a rock burst are extremely similar in terms of seismic events. The only difference between the two is 4 matter of scale. They both involve the violent release of seismic energy. For an earthquake, the stress build-up is the result of many decades or even centuries of movement in the earth's crust. For a rockburst, it is usually caused. by mining activity in a relatively short time. Therefore, the shear failure is significant to the study of rockbursting. 1.3 Conditions of violent failure. In this research, the shear behaviour is analyzed on a numerical model. Figure 2 schematically illustrates the model. The whole system can be described by an equrt ibrium equation. mx ='F(t,x) - f(u,P,x) (1)

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Fig. 2 Simple shear model. The shear force F which is a function of time and slip distance, is modelled by a spring which represents the elasticity of rock mass. This spring is supported by a moving base. The moving speed V simulates the loading speed. The effects of slip velocity and seismic radiation are also considered iN this model. Scholz and Engelder (1976) observed from experiments that the frictional coefficient is inversely proportional to the logarithm of slip velocity [5]. The seismic radiation is complex. One method in which radiation effects can be simulated without making the model unduly complicated is to attach a semi-infinite string to the mass particle in such a way that the motion of the mass particle excites an elastic wave which propagates along the string. The derived force exerted by the string on the mass is linearly proportional to the slip velocity. Thus, the term f includes the frictional resistance and the seismic dissipative force,both of which are functions of slip velocity. The stick time, which is the peace time between adjacent slips, obviously varies with conditions. If stable sliding is considered as a special case of stick-slip, in which the stick time is zero, a tran~ sition condition between the stable sliding and stick-slip exists. In this model. stable sliding is considered to occur when the stick time is equal to or less than IO-~ seconds instead of zero, mainly due to the numerical approximation and computing costs. Figure 3 shows some typical numerical results. This figure shows the transition chart. AS,expected, the driving speed, normal pressure and elasticity of the rock mass have a significant effect, although the effect from frictional coefficient is negligible. For a given material, the elastic modulus is specified. If the loading conditions of loading speed and normal pressure fall within the lower part of this chart, the shear behaviour will show stick-slip. The upper part represents the stable sliding. This chart can also be used to determine the maximum loading speed or minimum normal pressure for stick-slip for a given type of rock mass. It should be pointed out that this chart only shows the basic principle. The transition condition for a particular material should be obtained from experiments.

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Fig. 3 Transition between stable sliding and stick:-slip. From the physical conditions of the shear process and the transition chart, violence failure is ex1358

pected to occur during shear in the following three cases: MODE I. Violence is the stick-slip under very high normal pressure because of the large amount of energy released at each slip. MODE II. Violence comes from the transition from stick-slip to stable sliding. If a shear system which shows stick-slip behaviour suddenly changes into stable sliding for some reason, such as sudden reduction of normal pressure or quick increase of loading speed, extra energy is available. This energy has to be released quickly in order to keep up with the sudden change of loading condition. MODE III. Violence occurs under sudden loading. Whether the shear behaviour is stable sliding or stick-slip, violent failure is bound to happen if a shear force much higher than the shear strength is applied to the system suddenly, because extra potential energy is always available. The failure of intact rock, such as a rock specimen under conventional compressive test, belongs to the Mode III violence. If the shear stress starts from zero, which is usually the case, failure happens only when the shear stress reaches or exceeds the shear strength. Under this condition, there are only two modes of violent failure, namely Modes I and II. 2. ACOUSTIC SIGNALS FROM ROCK SPECIMENS During this research, laboratory experiments on rock specimens were carried out to study the acoustic activity prior to rock failure. They were designed to examine the acoustic emissions pattern from similar rock types loaded under compression and shear. The testing results are very encouraging and agree well with the mechanism postulated previously. Details of the test ~rogram and results have been previously published [6]. During compressive tests, generally few acoustic signals were observed before stress had reached some level, say 75% or 80% of the compressive strength,. Figure 4. This stress level corresponds to the fracture initiation. As the fracture propagates further under continuous loading, the acoustic activity becomes more intense. In the period between the fracture initiation and the final failure"the acoustic emission is most active. The most significant phenomenon during this period is the fact that the event rate increases rapidly initially and then dies down immediately preceding the specimen failure. At the same time, the energy release rate increases. When failure is approached, the energy rate shows a peak value. The drop of event rate and the peak value of the energy may indicate the coalescence of microfractures. These events are in perfect agreement with the failure principle discussed above. In the shear tests, both sawcut surfaces and natural breakage surfaces were loaded to failure. The surface roughness seems to have little effect on acoustic emission pattern, although the magnitude of the acoustic signal from the breakage surface is higher for the sawcut surface. In general, the acoustic activity is low before the slip and remains someWhat unchanged as sliding continues. The effect of' normal pressure on acoustic emission seems significant. As normal pressure increases, the acoustic activity increases throughout the shear process, characterized by higher magnitude, but the acoustic emission pattern changes little, Figure 5. As previously described, stick-slip phenomena were observed under high normal pressure. Following each slip, the'acoustic emission shows a'sharp increase. The acoustic activity remains at a low level as the stress builds up again. ... ~
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From testing results it is found that compressive failure and shear failure are two different modes of the failure mechanism of intact rock. Failure under compression is a matter of fracturing up to the point where a failore surface is initiated. After the formation of this surface. the failure process obeys the law of shear. Unfortunately. this shear process in compressive tests occurs extremely rapidly and cannot be easily observed. This is because the shear stress on the newly-formed fracture surface is much higher than the corresponding shear strength. Detailed analysis shows that this shear stress is up to three times higher than the strength for the specimens tested under compression. It is this extra shear stress that makes the failure viole~t. If this extra force can be extracted at the formation of the fracture surface. the failure can be reduced to non-violence. On the contrary. if a large shear load is suddenly applied to the shear specimen. violent failure can also be expected during shear process. This has been proven in the experiments by releasing the normal pressure instantly when slip began. resulting in bursting. Figure 6 shows the acoustic signals from one of these tests. The acoustic emission before slip has been completely shadowed by the peaking of signals at the instantaneous failure. Because the load is reduced to minima instantly. after shock is scarcely observed.
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can produce results similar to the acoustic signals recorded during tests. this model can serve the following purposes: 1. To justify the shear process as a mechanism ofi rock failure and rockbursting. 2. To verify the acoustic emission as a useful precursive signal. 3. To provide a tool to study the acoustic activity prior to rock failure. As in the finite element method of stress-strain analysis. the rock mass is discretized into individual elements. Because the shear process takes place on the contacting surfaces. the movement only occurs on the failure plane. Only two variables are needed to describe an exact location in a plane. However. this model is not involved in the exact descriptions of locations of the elements. only the behaviour of the elements during the movement is of interest. Therefore. only one degree of freedom is permitted. The model consists of a series of particles. N. connected together by springs. Figure 7. The mass of the material is concentrated on those particles and the spring represents the elasticity of the rock mass. Let the mass of particle i be m. and the stiffness of spring i be ~i. If we further assume that at the beginning all particles are at rest. by the force equilibrium of particle i as shown in Figure 7. the equation of motion of particle will be mixi

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From microseismic monitoring of rockbursts in situ and from acoustic emission tests of rock specimens in the laboratory. a large quantity of data of acoustic signals before rock failure is available. However. these data are only recordings of the acoustic signals. To date. the causes of these signals and how they actually occur remains unknown. In this research. a numerical model is developed to simulate the acoustic activity prior to rock failure. This model is not based on any physical law of acoustic emissions or on any empirical formula from previous recordings. It is entirely based on the proposed shear failure mechanisms. Whether the failure is in the fracturing stage or at s~ip stage. any movement of rock particles at a local area will induce vibration among the surrounding rock particles. It is this vibration which causes acoustic signals. It is expected that . if this model

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A computer program was written"lWhich in addition to the above unknowns, can also calculate the kinetic energy, the work done against friction and the seismic energy radiated, at any moment. The event number is counted by checking the change of status of every particle continuously. Obviously, at the beginning only parts of the system will move under the load. As loading continues, the number of particles in movement will increase. If the onset of movement of all particles is considered as the final failure of the system, the energy changes and acoustic activity prior to the failure can be simulated. 3.2 Modelling results This model generates excellent results. Some results from a typical analysis are given in Figure 8. As can be seen, the event rate increases sharply as the failure is approached and then drops to the previous low level immediately preceding the failure. Meanwhile, the seismic energy remains low when the event rate goes up, and increases dramatically prior to the failure. In the results from all runs of the program, the energy rate and energy ratio show a similar behaviour, although the energy ratio shows the anomaly more clearly. ~ , w ~
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failure and can be used for predictive purposes. The problem is how to use this signal correctly and efficiently. Consequently, this model provides us with a method to study the rock failure and the related acoustic activity. It can be used to simulate the acoustic emission under various conditions and to study the influence on the acoustic emission from the change of geological conditions and loading conditions. This part of the research is still in progress. 4. COMPARISON WITH FIELD RESULTS In order to check the acceptability of the above results from experiments and the numerical modelling, some field results of rockbursting monitoring have been studied. By comparison, it is found that the above results are in agreement with measurements made in situ in a deep level South African mine [7]. Two typical cases are presented: 4.1 Case 1: Rockburst on May IS, 1983 A large rockburst of magnitude 3.4 occurred on 10lWl Panel, No.3 shaft on May 15, 1983, at 03.37 hours. A concentration of microseismic events prior to the burst is apparent. In Figure 9 the number of microseismic events per hour originating from the panel for the period 8th to 15th May, 1983, is plotted. A steady increase can be seen, from approximately 60 events 6 days before the burst, to almost 300 events only 24 hours beforehand. A sharp drop in the rate of microseismic activity was measured immediately before the burst. For this particular case, the changes in the ratio between numbers of larger and smaller events provided the researcher with additional information to make a reliable prediction.

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not have been anticipate on October 4th, as the event rate parameter is very sensitive to the mining activity and no blasting took place in that area the previous afternoon. However, the corner frequency showed a steady drop for tne.precedinq 11 days and a further drop to below 600 Hz is indicated a few hours before the burst. This behaviour of the corner frequency gave a clear precursive indication of a pending rockburst. The average event energy also confirmed what was expected. Five days later, regular blasting started and was followed by a small burst (magnitude 1.4) at 4:39 hours on October 10th. Again, a relatively low corner frequency and a relatively high event energy preceded the burst. The blasting the previous afternoon made the event rate unusually high.

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A numerical model based on the shear failure mechanisms has produced results very similar to those from experiments. All these results are in agreement with measurements made in situ in a deep mine. This suggests that the postulated mechanism is true and the experimental results obtained clearly indicate that the monitoring of acoustic emissions can be used to reliably predict rockbursts. 6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Special thanks are given to Professor J. Nadeau in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at the University of British Columbia for the loan of acoustic monitoring equipment. Help from Mrs Melba Weber and Mark Stoakes during the preparation of this paper is'acknowledged. REFERENCES Jaeger, J.C. & Cook, N.G.W. 1969. "Fundamentals of! Rock Mechanics". Textbook. Hoskins, E.R., Jaeger, J.C .& Rosengren, K.J. 1968. "A Medium-Scale direct friction experiment". Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. Vol. 5, p. 143-154. Stesky, K.M. 1978. "Rock friction effect of confining pressure, temperature and pore pressure". Pageoph, Vol. 116, p. 690-703. Brace, W.F. & Byerlee, J.D. 1966. "Stick-slip as a mechanism of earthquakes". Science 153, p. 990. Dieterich, J.H. 1978. "Time dependent friction and the mechanism of stick-slip". Pageoph, Vol. 116, p. 790-805. Zou, Daihua & Miller, Hamish D.S. "Acoustic emissions from rock under unioxial compressive test and direct shear test". Proc. 29th Acoustic Emissions Working Group Meeting, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario, June 23-26, 1986. Brink, A.V.Z. & Mountfort, P.I. 1985. "Rockburst prediction research at Western Deep Levels Ltd. A review report of the period 1981-1984". Internal report No. R, p. 21. \ Bath, M. 1984. "Rockburst Seismology". Rockburst and seismicity in mines, S. Afr. Inst. Min. & Met. Symp. Series No.6, p. 7-15.

Fig. 10. Corner frequency, event rate and energy over 25 days, covering 2 burstS(after Brink) In this example, similar results as given previously were recorded. The energy goes up sharply in both bursts. The event rate shows an increase and drop prior to the burst, except the second burst, which was influenced by blasting. The corner frequency may be another important parameter to be used. It is schematically defined as fo in Figure II [8], which shows that when f < fo, the amplitude spectrum is level, and when f ~ fo' the spectrum decays. In other words, higher frequency corresponds to lower magnitude or to smaller event. The drop of fo may indicate a greater number of events in the low frequency band and more energy released. The increase of magnitude of individual events will be accompanied by a decrease of event rate because of the coalescence of microfractures. This hypothesis is supported by the empirical relation between the number of events and their magnitudes derived from years of observations of seismic events [7]. log N = a - b M (4) where a and b are constants, M is the magnitude and N the number of events of magnitude ~ M. Therefore, the downshift of the corner frequency also indirectly indicates the drop of the event rate and the sharp increase of the energy release. 5. CONCLUSIONS In this research, the source mechanism of rockbursts is studied and the acoustic emission prior to the bursting is analyzed. The shear failure is postulated as the basic mechanism'of rock failure and rockbursting. Important results were obtained from experiments on acoustic emission from rock specimens. 1362