Yanlin Zhao

Fractured rock mass is a relatively complex medium in nature. It plays a key role in various projects, such as geotechnical engineering, mining engineering and tunnel engineering. Especially, the interaction between fissures has a practical function in the guidance of safe production. This paper takes its research object as rock-like material which contains prefabricated parallel double fissures. It studies how the fissures’ length difference and spacing influence the failure of specimens under uniaxial compression, and analyzes them with fracture mechanics theory. The results include two aspects. Firstly, no matter how the length difference and spacing change, the upper fissure always generates new cracks. Secondly, the length difference and spacing produce three effects on the lower fissure. (1) The fissure propagates less obviously as the length difference increases. With the increase to 40mm, the propagation does not occur at all. (2) The decrease of spacing weakens the propagation. As it is reduced to 5 mm, the propagation stops. (3) The crack propagation is more sensitive to length difference than spacing. Regardless of spacing changes, if a length difference is large enough (40 mm or more), the new crack does not expand, while if it is small enough (10 mm or less), propagation always appears.