Experimental investigation on the cracking behavior of 3D printed kinked fissure
Uniaxial compression tests were carried out for 3D printed samples having various types of kinked fissures by using the rock mechanics servo-controlled testing system. Photo-elastic technique is adopted to characterize and visualize the stress distribution and evolution of 3D printed models subjected to vertical compression. The stress field in the loading process can clearly be captured via a high-speed camera. The results showed that fringes around the kinked fissure tips formed a central symmetrical interference fringe pattern, and failure firstly occurred at interference fringe of highest order. Two failure types i.e. tip-cracking and non-tip-cracking are categorized on the basis of crack propagation pattern of 3D printed samples. Tensile crack propagation of wing cracks is the main form of failure of the antisymmetric kinked fissures, but the inclination of the branch fissures also played a key role on the location of initial fracture. The finite element method was applied to numerically simulate the process of crack propagation. The isochromatic fringe patterns are in good agreement with the experimental investigation. The current work gives an insight for implication of advanced technique to quantify and visualize the distribution of stress field, and provides further understanding of kinked fissure behavior at failure.