Application of Digital Image Correlation Technique for the Damage Characteristic of Rock-like Specimens under Uniaxial Compression

The damage and degradation are the main influence factors of the instability of rock mass engineering. In this paper, the damage and deformation characteristics of the rock-like samples are investigated under the uniaxial compression test, and the advanced digital image correlation (DIC) device is devoted to full-field deformation data acquisition on the sample surface. Based on the full-field deformation data, a new damage variable is proposed by the principal strain standard deviation to characterize the uniaxial compression damage process of the rock-like samples. The results show that the newly presented damage variable can be utilized for the quantitative characterization of the sample damage. According to the characteristics of the damage variable, the damage evolution process of the rock-like specimens under uniaxial compression can be divided into four stages: initial damage closure stage, linear elastic damage stage, elastic-plastic damage stage, and plastic damage stage. From the stress-strain curve, the cut-off point from elastic to plastic deformation of the rock-like specimen is also the turning point from micro to macro damage; after the point, the apparent initial damage starts to occur on the sample surface; furthermore, the damage of the specimen is accelerated in the plastic damage stage. When the overall damage variable reaches 0.5 or the damage variable of strain localization zone reaches 0.8, the macro crack forms, and the bearing capacity of the rock-like specimen decreases rapidly. The findings are of great significance to the prediction of the damage process of rock mass engineering by digital image correlation.