Mechanical and damage evolution properties of sandstone under triaxial compression

Abstract To study the mechanical and damage evolution properties of sandstone under triaxial compression, we analyzed the stress strain curve characteristics, deformation and strength properties, and failure process and characteristics of sandstone samples under different stress states. The experimental results reveal that peak strength, residual strength, elasticity modulus and deformation modulus increase linearly with confining pressure, and failure models transform from fragile failure under low confining pressure to ductility failure under high confining pressure. Macroscopic failure forms of samples under uniaxial compression were split failure parallel to the axis of samples, while macroscopic failure forms under uniaxial compression were shear failure, the shear failure angle of which decreased linearly with confining pressure. There were significant volume dilatation properties in the loading process of sandstone under different confining pressures, and we analyzed the damage evolution properties of samples based on acoustic emission damage and volumetric dilatation damage, and established damage constitutive model, realizing the real-time quantitative evaluation of samples damage state in loading process.