Technical Note - New Method To Determine The Fracture Toughness Of Rocks And Oil Shale

Introduction One of the requirements of processing oil shale or other energy bearing rocks is to optimize particle sizes and permeability distributions in fragmentations as indicated by Hommert (1984). Basic to the understanding and planning of in situ fragmentation and ex situ mining of oil shale are the mechanical properties. During the past six years, an innovative and unique program was established by Chong et al. (1979, 1980a, 1980b, 1982a, 1982b) that developed an efficient methodology for standardized and simplified mechanical testing of the western oil shale. The experiments include precise, representative, and duplicable sample preparation; uniaxial static compression testing; "modified" split cylinder testing; uniaxial creep and relaxation testing under extended periods of time; dynamic testing with varying strain rates; and 3-D constitutive relationships. However, as far as the fracture mechanics is concerned, as Edl (1980) pointed out, there is still a lack of understanding "of the fundamental explosive rock breakage mechanisms," which "has necessitated extensive reliance on very costly empirical approaches." Fracture mechanics of rocks and oil shale (Costin, 1981; Schmidt, 1977; Abou-Sayed, 1977; and Barker, 1977) has been based on conventional fracture mechanics using regular notched samples with limited variations of oil yields and assuming the material to be isotropic and elastic (Kobayashi, 1975; Caddell, 1980). A cylindrical double cantilever beam (DCB) specimen with a "V" slot, known as a short rod specimen, has been used by Barker (1977) to determine fracture toughness of rock materials. The inherent geometric stability of the reinforced DCB specimen makes it suitable to be used with all brittle materials. Due to its remarkable stability for the initial crack growth, the DCB specimen can be used for dynamic fracture toughness testing as well. This specimen is more suitable for the evaluation of fracture toughness at high strain rates than most other fracture specimens. However, Barker's DCB specimen is not very well adaptable for short cores or layered rocks since the specimen contains numerous layers (say in a 100-mm (4-in.) long specimen), and the rock properties change from layer to layer. Schmidt (1977) studied the fracture mechanics of oil shale with two oil yields, using notched beams. Using several independent established testing methods, Costin (1981) pioneered the investigation of the static