Damage accumulation in a piecewise-homogeneous rock block under compression.

The damage accumulation in a rock mass is conventionally monitored using rock specimens that are subjected to gradually growing compression for acoustic emission recording. The research problem is to establish the relationship between the stress-strain state of a test specimen and the failure initiation, that is, the geometry of accumulated pores. When solving direct problems, it is found that the specimen failure onset depends on boundary conditions created under plates of a compressive device. The authors consider the cases of the damage accumulation and failure initiation in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]