Stress Drop as a Result of Splitting, Brittle and Transitional Faulting of Rock Samples in Uniaxial and Triaxial Compression Tests

Rock samples can behave brittle, transitional or ductile depending on test pressure, rate of loading and temperature. Axial stiffness and its changes, relative and absolute dilatancy, yield, and fracture thresholds, residual strength are strongly pressure dependent. In this paper the stress drop as an effect of rock sample strength loss due to failure was analyzed. Uniaxial and triaxial experiments on three types of rock were performed to investigate the stress drop phenomenon. The paper first introduces short background on rock behavior and parameters defining a failure process under uniaxial and triaxial loading conditions. Stress drop data collected with experiments are analyzed and its pressure dependence phenomenon is described. Two methods for evaluation of stress drop value are presented.