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Rock Dynamics
Final term presentation

Lecture Topic:
Cyclic Loading

Professor: Dr. Kamran Goshtasbi

Presented by: Abdolhakim Javid

 What Does Cyclic Loading Mean?

Cyclic loading is defined as the

continuous and repeated application of
a load (fluctuating stresses, strains,
forces, tensions, etc.) on a material or
on a structural component.
Cyclic loading causes materials to
deteriorate due to fatigue, often at
lower loads and after a shorter time
than normally expected.
Cyclic loading may be axial, bending or torsional
 What Does Cyclic fatigue Mean?

Fatigue is the lowering of strength or the

failure of a material due to repetitive
stress, which may be above or below the
yield strength.
- Many engineering materials such as those
used in cars, planes, turbine engines,
machinery, shoes, etc are subjected
constantly to repetitive stresses in the form
of tension, compression, bending, vibration,
thermal expansion and contraction or other
stresses.
Fatigue

- For fatigue to occur at least, part of the stress in the material has to
be tensile.
- Fatigue is most common in metals and plastics, whereas ceramics
fail catastrophically without fatigue because of their low fracture
toughness.
- Fatigue failures are often easy to identify.
- The fracture surface near the origin is usually smooth. The surface
becomes rougher as the crack increases in size.
- Microscopic and macroscopic examination reveal a beach mark
pattern and striations.
 Fatigue

Beach mark patterns indicate that the load is changed during service or the
load is intermittent.
Striations are on a much finer scale and show the position of the crack tip after
each cycle.
 Fatigue

- The most important fatigue data for engineering designs are the S-N
curves, which is the Stress-Number of Cycles curves.

- In a fatigue test, a specimen is subjected to a cyclic stress of a certain

form and amplitude and the number of cycles to failure is determined.

- The number of cycles, N to failure is a function of the stress amplitude, S.

- A plot of S versus N is called the S-N curve.

Fatigue

The S-N curves showing the number of cycles to failure

Fatigue

Fatigue Limit:
• For some materials such as BCC steels and Ti alloys, the S-N
curves become horizontal when the stress amplitude is
decreased to a certain level.
• This stress level is called the Fatigue Limit, or Endurance Limit,
which is typically ~35-60% of the tensile strength for steels.
• In some materials, including steels, the endurance limit is
approximately half (50%) the tensile strength given by:
endurance limit
Endurance ratio = ≈ 0.5
tensile strength
Fatigue

Fatigue Strength:
For materials, which do not show a fatigue limit, i.e.,
the S-N curves do not become horizontal such as Al,
Cu, and Mg (non-ferrous alloys), and some steels with
a FCC structure,
• fatigue strength is specified as the stress level at
which failure will occur for a specified number of
cycles, where 107 cycles is often used.
Fatigue Failures

Types of stresses for fatigue tests

include,
axial (tension – compression)
flexural (bending)
torsional (twisting)
From these tests the following data is generated.

By convention, tensile stresses are positive and compression stresses are negative.
 Fatigue Failures

Examples of stress a

cycles where:
a) shows the stress in
compression and tension, b
b) shows there’s greater
tensile stress than
compressive stress and in
c
c) all of the stress is
tensile.
Fatigue Failures

As the mean stress, m, increases, the stress amplitude, a, must
decrease in order for the material to withstand the applied stress.
This condition is summarized by the Goodman relationship:
𝜎m
Stress Amplitude, 𝜎a = 𝜎fs 1 −
𝜎TS

Where fs is the desired fatigue strength for zero mean stress and
TS is the tensile strength of the material.
Example: if an airplane wing is loaded near its yield strength,
vibrations of even a small amplitude may cause a fatigue crack to
initiate and grow. This is why aircraft have a routine inspection in
order to detect the high-stress regions for cracks.
Fatigue Failures

Crack Growth Rate:

To estimate whether a crack will grow, the stress intensity factor
(K), which characterizes the crack geometry and the stress
amplitude can be used.
Below a threshold K a crack doesn’t grow.
For somewhat higher stress intensities, the cracks grow slowly.
Fatigue Failures

For still higher stress-intensities a crack grows at a rate given by:

Paris' law (also known as the Paris–

Erdogan equation) is a crack
𝑑𝑎 𝑛
= 𝐶 Δ𝐾
growth equation that gives the rate 𝑑𝑁
of growth of a fatigue crack

The material coefficients C and n are obtained experimentally

and also depend on environment, frequency, temperature and
stress ratio.
When K is high, the cracks grow in a rapid and unstable manner
until fracture occurs.
 Fatigue Failures

Region II, is defined by the

Paris curve

- crack initiation (stage I),

- crack growth (stage II),
- and crack propagation
(stage III) or instability stage
Fatigue Failures

From the steady state crack growth relationship of:

𝑑𝑎
= 𝐶 Δ𝐾 𝑛
𝑑𝑁
if we integrate between the initial size of a crack and the crack
size required for fracture to occur, we find that the number of
cycles to failure is given by

2 (𝑎𝑐 )(2−𝑛)/2 − (𝑎𝑖 )(2−𝑛)/2

𝑁=
(2 − 𝑛)𝐶𝑓 𝑛 Δ𝜎 𝑛 𝜋 𝑛/2
Material fatigue test
Rock Dynamics

Examples Related
To Cyclic Loading

1-Fatigue in hydraulic fracturing

2-Fatigue in Airplane
1-Fatigue in  In this experiment the fluid was injected in
cycles before breakdown pressure was

hydraulic fracturing
reached. The peak pressure of each cycle
was incremented by 10% of the reference
breakdown pressure obtained from
conventional hydraulic fracturing
experiments on dry samples.
 The breakdown pressure of the rock is
observed in the 8th cycle. The breakdown
pressure recorded in this experiment was 2519
psi which is 16% lower than the reference
breakdown pressure (2947 psi).
 The decrease in the breakdown pressure is
considered significant and is attributed to
fatigue caused due to cyclic injection.
 2-Fatigue in Airplane

 Airplane structures are subjected

repeated loads, called cyclic loads,
and the resulting cyclic stresses can
lead to microscopic physical damage
to the materials involved.
 Even at stresses well below the
material’s ultimate strength, this The process of
damage can accumulate with accumulating damage
continued cycling until it and finally to failure due to
develops into a crack or other cyclic loading is called
damage that leads to failure of fatigue.
the component.
Comet airplane
accidents 1953 &
1954

 In a pressurized airplane,
the fuselage becomes in
effect, a cylindrical
pressure vessel, which is
pressurized and relaxed
every time the aircraft
climbs and descends.
DETECTED REASONS :  The lethal mistake in the design
of the Comet lay in not realizing
sufficiently the danger of
In each of these accidents “fatigue” occurring at stress
the cracks seem to have concentrations in the metal
started from the same small fuselage under repeated cycles
hole in the fuselage and of pressurization and de-
spread, slowly and pressurization.
undetected, until they
reached a critical length.
Whereupon the skin tore
catastrophically and the
fuselage exploded like a
blown-up balloon.
Rock Dynamics

Paper Related To
Cyclic Loading

Effects of Cyclic Loading on the Mechanical

[

Properties of Mature Bedding Shale

]
Research Article:
1. Introduction
- In recent years, with the development of unconventional oil and gas resources,
hydraulic fracturing technology has been paid more attention. To ensure the success
of hydraulic fracturing, it is necessary to understand the mechanical properties of
shale formations.
- Under different sedimentary environment conditions, the bedding density of
shale formation has a great difference. therefore, the bedding plays a significant
role in both mechanical behavior and engineering activities.

- The mechanical properties of shale under dynamic loads differ dramatically

from those under static loads. However, the nature of dynamic failure in the rock
remains unclear, especially under cyclic loading conditions. Therefore, it is of
great significance to study the mechanical behavior of shale rock under cyclic
loading.
1. Introduction
- It has also been reported that different materials show different responses when
they are subjected to cyclic loading—some materials become stronger and more
ductile, while others become weaker and more brittle .

- Previous studies show that the fatigue damage of rock has a “threshold
value,” when the maximum stress value is lower than a certain value, the
sample cannot be destroyed no matter how many load cycles are applied; thus,
the maximum stress has an important influence on the fatigue life.

- There is a great difference on deformation mechanism between the

homogeneous rock and the layered rock. The angle between the loading
direction and the bedding has an important influence on the mechanical
properties and failure modes for layered rock
1. Introduction
- During hydraulic fracturing processes in shale gas reservoirs, the changing of
drilling mud density causes stress fluctuations in the surrounding rock during
long horizontal well drilling. The shale rock mass is subjected to repeated
loading and unloading cycles; therefore, accurate assessment of the shale
reservoir crushing effect and long-term stability of the well-bore during hydraulic
fracturing is an important practical significance.

- Using RMT-150C rock mechanics test system, the axial deformation, strength
characteristics, and rupture mode of the cycle loading were studied and
analyzed, and some useful conclusions were obtained which could provide
effective technical parameters for hydraulic fracturing.
2. Experimental Approach The shale samples also
show obvious anisotropic
characteristics
2-1 Specimens
The shale samples used in the experiment were collected from Longmaxi
formation at Nanchuan outcrop in Chongqing Province, China.
- in one meter, the number of bedding is more than 200.
- The fatigue properties of shale rock were studied under cyclic loading with
two principal loading orientations: parallel and perpendicular to the bedding
planes.
- specimen’s diameter is 50 mm, and its height is 100 mm.
- The average density was 2.665 g/cm3, and the average porosity was
1.25%
- The average P-wave velocity of vertical coring samples was 4667 m/s,
and parallel coring samples was 4306 m/s.
- vertical permeability was lower than horizontal permeability, with a
difference of more than 2 orders of magnitude.
- Mineral compositions showed in table 1
2. Experimental Approach
2-2 Experimental Design
The mechanical properties of shale are obtained by uniaxial
compression test, which provides a reference for the upper
limit stress setting of cyclic loading test

RMT-150C electrohydraulic servo-control

2. Experimental Approach
2-2 Experimental Design
- For cyclic loading tests, the axial loading was specified as a sinusoidal cyclic compressive load,
and the loading frequency was set to 0.5 Hz. The cyclic tests were conducted at four different
maximum stress amplitudes on the parallel and vertical coring samples.

- Finally, the results of the fatigue tests were analyzed in relation to various parameters such as
axial strain, cycle times, and rupture mode.
3. Test Results and Analysis
3-1 Uniaxial Compressive Strength and Deformation
- The samples show obvious brittleness characteristics.
- For two principal loading orientations, the compressive strength and elastic modulus were
obviously anisotropic.
- For parallel coring samples, the average peak stress is 86.20 MPa, and average elastic modulus
is 15.95 Gpa, and for vertical coring samples is 116.49 MPa, and 15.26 Gpa respectively.

initiation of microcracking
occurred along the bedding
split tensile failure occurred
plane
3. Test Results and Analysis
3-2 Comparison between Cyclic Loading and Uniaxial Compression
- In Figure 5. The upper limit stress ratio of the cycle test was 0.90, and the amplitude stress ratio was 0.65
- In Figure 6, The upper limit stress ratio of the cycle test was 0.95, and the amplitude stress ratio was 0.81
- The figure indicates that the failure occurs below the maximum strength loading condition, as a result of
accumulative damage
I: stable crack propagation I: initial stage of fatigue fracture
II: unstable crack propagation II: stable crack propagation
III: unstable crack propagation

Figure 5: Stress-strain curves for uniaxial compression Figure 6: Stress-strain curves for uniaxial compression
(sample H-12) and cyclic (sample H-5) loading tests. (sample V-13) and cyclic (sample V-1) loading tests.
3. Test Results and Analysis
3-3 The Effect of Maximum Stress
- The effect of maximum stress on fatigue life indicates that the relationship between the
maximum stress and fatigue life is subordinate to the power-law function
-Results were shown that the damage from cyclic loading on shale rock was weakened when
the normal stress was perpendicular to the bedding plan
3. Test Results and Analysis
3-3 The Effect of Maximum Stress
- At 0.95 maximum stress levels, during the fatigue life, the axial strain has no obvious turning
point. However, for other upper limit stress conditions, the axial strain can be divided into 3
stages: an initial deformation stage, a constant velocity deformation stage, and an accelerated
deformation stage, with the second stage being dominant
3. Test Results and Analysis
3-3 The Effect of Maximum Stress
- The fatigue failure of shale rock is progressive accumulation of irreversible deformation in axial
direction

- For parallel coring samples, the irrecoverable deformation was relatively small at the initial
stage of the cycle, and irreversible deformation was mainly produced in the third stage. For
vertical coring samples, the irreversible deformation ratio was greater than that for parallel
coring in the initial stage, and cumulative irreversible deformation was mainly completed in the
first and second stages.
 3. Test Results and Analysis
3-4 Fatigue Damage Evolution Characteristics
- Fatigue failure occurred when a large number of cracks coalesced into a macrocrack

- The constant velocity occupied most of the fatigue life, although the cumulative amount of
deformation was only one-third of the total. The remaining two stages experienced a relatively
short time, but the accumulation of deformation during these stages was very large.

The initial damage is greater

under condition of the loading
direction perpendicular to the
bedding surface
3. Test Results and Analysis
3-4 Fatigue Damage Evolution Characteristics

The behavior of damage evolution

is greatly dependent on the
maximum stress, amplitude, and
fatigue initial damage.
The increase of these variables
causes the second stage to be
shortened, which is related to the
whole fatigue process
 3. Test Results and Analysis
3-5 Deformation Modulus and the Number of Cycles
- In the first stage, the deformation modulus increased gradually with increasing cycle
times, the change was mainly due to the closure of rock pores and microcracks
- In the second stage, the deformation modulus is decreasing slowly during a long period,
which occupies most of the cycle time.
- The third stage corresponds to the accelerated phase of fatigue deformation, and
deformation modulus reduced, and the specimen damaged
 3. Test Results and Analysis
3-6 Fatigue Fracture Characteristics
-(a), It indicates that the failure mode of parallel
coring samples was mainly tensile failure mode of
multiple layer surfaces.

- (b), The failure mode was mainly mixed failure

and dominated by tension cracks and shear
cracks

In the process of hydraulic

fracturing, if natural fractures and
microfractures are present, the
fracture pressure required to extend
the cracks will be lower; thus, it is
easier to form a fracture network.
 Hydraulic fracturing
technology is the key

4. Discussion technology for developing

shale reservoir.

- When hydraulic fracturing is carried out in the reservoir of bedding shale, the original natural
lamination seam can be activated by adjusting the pressure of hydraulic fracturing pump.

- A large number of testing results demonstrate that the peak strength of rocks decreases by
65% due to crack growth when cyclic loading is considered, and in this paper under cyclic
loading, shale rocks fail at a stress close to 80% of the peak strength under monotonic loading.

- The angle between loading direction and bedding plane directly affects the characteristics of
fatigue test. For parallel coring samples, the end deformation of fatigue test is consistent with
uniaxial loading failure deformation. But the rupture mode is more broken than uniaxial
compression. This indicates that, in the process of hydraulic fracturing, the fluctuation of water
pressure helps to open more bedding surfaces, to form complex network crack.

- For vertical coring samples, the specimen is very fully damaged after the fatigue load. Analysis
of fatigue damage variable at deferent load levels shows that when the maximum load level is
decreased, the process of crack initiation occupies a large proportion of the whole fatigue life,
while crack growth occurs at higher stresses.
 5. Conclusions
- Shale rock is a nonhomogeneous material, and its fatigue life differs
greatly in two principal loading orientations, which results in great
difficulty in conducting fatigue analysis.

- The fatigue damage process may be divided into 3 stages: an initial

damage stage, a constant velocity damage stage, and an
accelerated damage stage which accounted for about one-third of the
total damage.

- In order to effectively activate the original bedding plane or natural

cracks, first of all, the distribution mode of natural cracks and bedding
plane should be mastered; then, the number of cycle times and the
maximum of the pump pressure can be adjusted as far as possible.
THANK YOU