International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18

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International Journal of
Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijrmms

Non-local failure theory and two-parameter tensile strength model for semi- T
circular bending tests of granitic rocks
⁎
Wei Yao, Kaiwen Xia , Xing Li
Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A4

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Several indirect tension tests have been proposed and widely used to quantify rock tensile strength due to
Tensile strength difficulties associated with experimentation in direct tension tests. However, discrepancies exist between rock
Flexural tensile strength tensile strengths obtained from the direct tension tests and those from indirect tension tests. The non-local theory
Semi-circular bend has been used to reconcile such differences. However, the physical meaning of the characteristic material length
Non-local theory
δ in the non-local theory is still unclear. We investigate the physical meaning of the characteristic length δ by
Characteristic material length
Rocks
testing three typical granitic rocks featuring different grain sizes. An indirect tension method - semi-circular
bending (SCB) test is applied to obtain the flexural tensile strength for these rocks. The specimens are perfectly
split into two quadrants by a main crack through the center of the specimen. The flexural tensile strengths of
three rocks generally decrease with the span distance. From flexural tensile strengths under different testing
conditions, the optimized values of the characteristic material length δ and the rock intrinsic tensile strength are
determined for these three rocks. It is found the tensile strengths of three rocks predicted by the non-local theory
match well with those obtained from independent experiments using the Brazilian disc method. The non-local
failure theory is used to explain the observation that the flexural tensile strength of three rocks decreases with
the span distance. Moreover, the material characteristic length δ correlates well with the rock grain size, and the
physical meaning of material characteristic length can be considered as the scaled average grain size of rocks.
Based on the successful application of the non-local theory, a two-parameter tensile strength model for rocks is
proposed.

1. Introduction
Underground opening is common in many important geological and
geophysical applications including mining, petroleum, defense infra-
structure and hydropower. Tensile stress and tensile stress gradients are
often encountered in underground opening although the general in-situ
stress state for underground rocks is normally compressive. Due to the
much smaller tensile strength of rocks as compared to their compressive
strength, tensile failure is the main and significant failure mode of
rocks. Consequently, tensile strength is an important material para-
meter for rocks.
Tensile strength is defined as the failure stress under pure uniaxial
tensile loading, the direct tension method (e.g., direct pull test) is thus
the most suitable method for the determination of rock tensile
strength.1 However in practice, significant error may be introduced to
the direct tension measurement results from stress concentration due to
gripping of the rock specimens and misalignment.2 Hence, several al-
ternative indirect tension tests were proposed to measure the tensile
strength of rocks.3,4 Brazilian disc (BD) test is the most popular indirect
tension test for rocks due to ease in alignment and low-cost in experi-
mentation.3,5,6 Under uniform far-field compression, the bi-axial stress
state is induced at the failure spot (i.e., center of the disc) in the BD
specimen: the compression along the loading direction and the tensile
stress perpendicular to the loading direction. In this case, the tensile
stress near the failure spot in the BD rock specimen is uniform.7 The
tensile strength measured using the BD method is thought to be the
closest one to the rock intrinsic tensile strength and the small difference
between these two has been explained.2
However instead of uniform loading condition, bending load is
common near underground openings, e.g., flexural tensile stresses are
induced at the roof of an underground opening and the failure mode is
consequently dominated by the flexural tensile failure. In such cases,
stress gradients of varying magnitude and in-situ stresses always ac-
company the flexural tensile stresses in rocks, depending on both the
configuration of the excavation and on the specific rock breaking
technique.8 High tensile stress gradients also exist on a microscale in

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: wei.yao@mail.utoronto.ca (W. Yao), kaiwen.xia@utoronto.ca (K. Xia), xingmail.li@utoronto.ca (X. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmms.2018.07.002
Received 18 April 2018; Received in revised form 28 June 2018; Accepted 26 July 2018
1365-1609/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
W. Yao et al.
Table 1
The comparison between the flexural tensile strength and tensile strength of
rocks.
Rock Flexural tensile strength Tensile strength (MPa)
(MPa)
Barre granite (BG) 16.510 9.45
Laurentian granite (LG) 26.216 12.816
Bowral Trachyte 7.817 3.718
Gosford Sandstone 11.617 8.618
Carrara Marble 25.117 12.018
the vicinity of flaws, at grain contacts and at pores in rocks. Van de
Steen et al.8 experimentally and theoretically investigated the influence
of stress gradients on the flexural tensile failure of rocks. It has been
proven that the fracture initiation mainly depends on both the stress
gradient and the magnitude of the bending stress. Therefore, both the
rock flexural tensile strength and the stress gradient in rocks con-
siderably affect the tensile failure of rocks.
Semi-circular bending (SCB) test is an effective method to study the
rock flexural tensile failure in the laboratory. The tensile failure of rock
specimen in the SCB method is induced by far-field compression, and
the tensile stress at the failure point of the SCB tests is produced by
bending load. Along the fracture path in the SCB specimen, there exists
a tensile stress gradient of various magnitudes, depending on the con-
figuration of the SCB specimen.8,9 This usually leads to a quite higher
flexural tensile strength of rocks as compared to the tensile strength
obtained from the BD tests (as shown in Table 1).2,3,6,8,10–13 This dis-
crepancy has been reconciled by non-local failure theories.2,8,10 In these
theories, the strength of a body at a point is generally a function of the
stress state from a certain representative volume, area or line around
that point.14 It is clear that non-local failure theories always involve the
introduction of a characteristic material length δ. Using an appropriate
characteristic length value, the intrinsic tensile strength of a material in
the non-local theory as obtained from the apparent strength (i.e.,
flexural tensile strength) values is similar to the tensile strength ob-
tained from the BD tests with a negligible stress gradient.2,8,10 It has
been approved that the characteristic length can be considered as a
material parameter, being related to the aggregate or grain size.15
Nevertheless, the physical meaning of the characteristic material length
scale in the non-local theories is still unclear. Hence, the primary ob-
jective of this work is to physically determine the meaning of the
characteristic material length for rocks.
To achieve the objective of determining the physical meaning of the
characteristic material length, we employed the SCB method to obtain
the flexural tensile strength for three typical granitic rocks featuring
different grain sizes. Based on the different loading conditions, the
optimized values of the characteristic material length and the rock in-
trinsic tensile strength are determined for these three rocks. In addition,
the physical meaning of the material characteristic length δ is given by
using the rock grain size. Based on the successful application of the non-
local theory, a two-parameter tensile strength model for general tensile
rock failure is proposed, which provides good and consistent guidelines
for rock structural design involving a stress gradient.
This paper is organized as follows. After the introduction, Section 2
reviews the non-local failure criteria. The experimental methodology is
introduced in Section 3 and Section 4 describes the rock characteristics.
The results along with discussions are presented in Section 5. Section 6
summarizes the entire paper.
2. Non-local failure criteria
There are a number of non-local failure criteria proposed by re-
searchers.14,19–23 Some of these criteria not only give a good description
of experimental data when the stress distribution is close to a uniform
stress state, but are also applicable to bodies with cracks and singular
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International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18
stress concentrators. Some generalized forms of non-local failure cri-
teria were presented in the literature,14,19,24 including a general form of
body non-local strength conditions, a general form of point non-local
strength conditions, and several functional forms of non-local strength
conditions. For non-local failure criteria based on strength evaluation,
the generalized form can be expressed as follows:
f (sij (y)) = σc (1)
where f is a function of stress tensor sij , y is an analyzed point, σc is a
material constant that is called the intrinsic tensile strength in this
work. For two-dimensional cases, there are three most popular non-
local failure criteria based on strength evaluation:14 fracture criterion
based on average stress over a characteristic length or average stress
fracture criterion (ASFC),20,21 fracture criterion based on a minimum
stress over a characteristic length or minimum stress fracture criterion
(MSFC)21 and fracture criterion based on a model of fictitious crack
with a characteristic length or fictitious crack fracture criterion
(FCFC).22,23 We assume that (ρ , θ) is a local polar coordinate system
with the center at the analyzed point y of a body; η(θ) is a unit vector
with angle θ to the coordinate axis; and σρρ , σθθ and σρθ are the stress
components in this coordinate system.
The ASFC states that the material fails when the tensile strength of
material is equal to the average local stress over a specific distance (i.e.
a characteristic length) along the prospective fracture direction. It can
be written in the following generalized form:
1 δ1
max
δ1 −π < θ < π
∫0 σθθ (y + ρ η (θ)) dρ = σc
(2)
where σc is the intrinsic tensile strength of a body under uniform trac-
tion, δ1 is a characteristic material length. If the maximum direction θ0
in Eq. (2) is known and the integration is performed along this direc-
tion, the ASFC equation can be simplified as follows:
1 δ1
δ1
∫0 σθθ (y + ρ η (θ0)) dρ = σc
(3)
The MSCF implies that the material fails when the tensile strength of
material is equal to the minimum local stress over a characteristic
length along the prospective fracture direction. It may be written as:
max ⎡0min σθθ (y + ρ η (θ)) ⎤ = σc
−π ≤ θ ≤ π ⎣ ≤ ρ ≤ δ2 ⎦ (4)
where σc and δ2 are material constants with the similar meaning as
those in Eq. (2). With a known maximum direction θ0 in Eq. (4), MSFC
can be rewritten in a simpler form:
min σθθ (y + ρ η (θ0)) = σc
0 ≤ ρ ≤ δ2 (5)
The FCFC indicates that the material fails when the stress intensity
factor of material is equal to the critical local stress intensity factor over
a characteristic length along the prospective fracture direction. In the
FCFC, it is assumed that there exists a fictitious crack with a char-
acteristic length δ3 originating from the considered point y of the body.
The FCFC may be represented in the following form:
max min K1i (y, θ , δ3 ) = K1c
−π ≤ θ ≤ π i (6)
Here K1c and δ3 are material constants, K11 = K1 (y) and
K12 = K1 (y + δ3 η (θ)) are the stress intensity factors at the ends of the
fictitious crack along the η(θ) direction. If the direction θ0 of fracture is
known, Eq. (6) yields:
min(K1 (y), K1 (y + δ3 η (θ0))) = K1c (7)
For an edge crack beginning from the body boundary, there exists
only one stress intensity factor K1 (y + δ3 η (θ0)) and the minimum dis-
appears in Eq. (7).
Comparing these three non-local failure criteria, one can see that
each of the criterion mentioned above contains two material
W. Yao et al.
parameters: a characteristic length and the tensile strength (ASFC and
MSFC) or the critical stress intensity factor (FCFC). The tensile strength
or the critical stress intensity factor can be determined from traditional
tensile or fracture experiments. The characteristic length is related to
the structural characteristics of materials (microstructures for rocks),
and can be indirectly determined from either a tension experiment of a
plate containing a central straight crack,14 or a linear regression ana-
lysis/a least-square method of testing results with different rock spe-
cimen configurations.2 In addition, Isupov et al.14 found that ASFC is
preferable to predict the experimental data in most cases. Indeed, ASFC
has been successfully used to reconcile the difference between the
flexural tensile strength and the tensile strength under both static and
dynamic loading conditions.2,5,8,12,25 Consequently, ASFC is used in this
work to determine the physical meaning of the characteristic material
length.
3. Experimental methodology
It is well known that three points bending (TPB) tests are adopted as
a standard for determining the flexural tensile strength of materials
such as natural and artificial building stones, rocks, cement and con-
cretes.9,26 As a modified TPB method, the semi-circular bending (SCB)
method is one of the famous indirect methods for determining the
flexural tensile strength of rocks (Fig. 1).2,27–30 The core-based SCB
specimen has advantages of convenient sample preparation and easy
specimen alignment.3,10 Thereby, the SCB method is cost-effective and
reliable, and is chosen in this study to measure the flexural tensile
strength of rocks.
According to the geometry of the SCB specimen in Fig. 1, we first
drilled 56 mm diameter rock cores at the same direction in the rock
blocks and then sliced and polished the cores into discs with 20 mm
thickness (B in Fig. 1) and a surface roughness variation of less than
0.5% of the specimen thickness. The SCB samples were subsequently
made from the full discs by diametrically cutting into half discs with
radius R = 28 mm (Fig. 1).
Based on dimensional analysis, the tensile stress history at the
failure spot O (Fig. 1) of the SCB sample can be calculated by31
Fig. 1. The semi-circular bending (SCB) specimen.
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International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18
P (t ) S
σ (t ) = Y⎛ ⎞
πBR ⎝ 2R ⎠ (8)
where P(t) is the loading history during the test, S is the span length of
two pins, Y is a function of the dimensionless geometry parameter αs
= S/(2 R) and is calibrated using static finite element analysis.31 Dai
et al.31 gave the Y-calibration process and reported Y function as the
polynomial fitting Y= 2.22 + 2.87αs + 4.54αs2, which is also used in
this study. For the different configurations, the value of Y can be ob-
tained from the fitting equation and the flexural tensile strength σf is
then determined with the peak value of the tensile stress history at the
failure spot.
A series of flexural tensile strengths are required to accurately ob-
tain the value of the characteristic material length for a specific rock. In
this study, the SCB tests with the various span distances of two pins
were applied to attain a series of flexural tensile strengths of the same
rock because the studies have shown that the flexural tensile strength of
rocks strongly depends on the SCB specimen geometry.3 Hence, a spe-
cial holder was designed to achieve the variation of the span distance in
the SCB tests. As shown in Fig. 2, two pins are fixed on the top of the
holder. Three shafts are used to guarantee that two parts of the holder
can relatively move in the desired direction, which ensures that two
pins are always parallel when the span length is changing. Three
springs and one threaded bolt at the center work together to fix two
parts of the holder during the SCB tests. This guarantees that the span
distance of two pins is fixed during the SCB test. The span distance can
be easily changed by turning the nut on threaded bolt. Due to the force
balance between the springs and threaded bolt, two pins can be fixed at
different desire span distances and thus various span distances are ob-
tained in the SCB tests.
4. Rock characteristics
4.1. Properties of granitic rock with three different grain sizes
Three granites with different grain sizes and similar mineral com-
positions are chosen in this study: Barre granite (BG), Laurentian
granite (LG) and Westerly granite (WG). These three granitic rocks have
been extensively studied in rock mechanics laboratories because they
can provide a high level of repeatability under carefully controlled test
conditions. Barre granite (BG), from Burlington, Vermont, USA, is a
medium-coarse grained rock with the mineral grain size ranging from
0.25 to 3 mm.32 The dominant mineral is feldspar (65%) with an
average grain size of 0.83 mm. The remainder minerals are quartz
(25%) with an average grain size of 0.9 mm and biotite (6%) with an
average grain size of 0.43 mm. Laurentian granite (LG) is a fine-medium
grained rock from the Laurentian region of the Precambrian Canadian
Shield. The mineral grain size of LG is from 0.2 to 2 mm. The average
grain size of feldspar, the dominant mineral (60%), is 0.4 mm.32 Quartz
constitutes 33% in LG and its average grain size is 0.5 mm. The grain
size of Biotite (3–5%) is of the order of 0.3 mm. Westerly granite (WG)
found mainly in the southeast corner of Rhode Island is a fine grained
rock and is composed of 66% feldspar (i.e., 36% microcline and 30%
plagioclase), 27% quartz, 6% biotite and 1% accessory minerals.33 The
grain size of feldspar is 0.1–0.8 mm and the grain size of quartz is
0.2–0.6 mm.34 The mean grain size is 0.3 mm.35,36 Some of physical and
mechanical properties of these three granitic rocks are summarized in
Table 2.
4.2. The microscopic characteristic of three rocks
Thin section was produced for these three rocks to observe the
minerals and obtain the average grain size for each rock in this study.
Microphotographs of BG, LG and WG derived from optical microscope
are shown in Figs. 3–5, respectively. The minerals of these three rocks
are illustrated in microphotographs with both transmitted plane
W. Yao et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18

Fig. 2. (a) Schematics and (b) photo of the semi-circular bending (SCB) testing system.

Table 2 feldspar and biotite.

Summary of the mechanical properties of three granitic rocks. In the thin section, the grain shape was digitized and the grain sizes
Properties Materials
were counted and measured with respect to the longest diameter of
grains. However, the grains showed in the thin section are along a
BG LG WG random plane. It is noteworthy that the grain size derived from the
3 37 16
randomly oriented grains in thin sections is generally biased. This bias
Density (g/cm ) 2.65 1.63 2.6238
Young's Modulus (GPa) 5510 9216 7039
of the grain size from thin section is caused by the so-called corpuscle
Poisson's Ratio 0.2432 0.2116 0.2539 effect.41 Generally, the grain size obtained from thin section is finer
Tensile Strength (MPa) 9.45 12.816 1040 than the nominal grain size of minerals since the two-dimensional
Flexural Tensile Strength (MPa) 16.510 26.216 – sections of mineral grains in most cases are not proportional to the
nominal cross-section of mineral grains in three dimensions. For this
reason, the average mineral grain sizes estimated from thin sections in
polarizers and crossed-polarizers. It can be seen that the quartz in mi-
this study are a little smaller than the nominal average grain sizes of
crophotographs are much clearer under transmitted plane polarized
rocks,42 but this little difference is acceptable in this study as we focus
condition. These three rocks are composed of similar minerals: quartz,

Fig. 3. Microphotographs of two typical areas in BG sample with (a) & (b) transmitted plane polarizers and (c) & (d) crossed-polarizers (A is quartz, B is feldspar and
C is biotite).

12
W. Yao et al.
Fig. 4. Microphotographs of two typical areas in LG sample with (a) & (b) transmitted plane polarizers and (c) & (d) crossed-polarizers (A is quartz, B is feldspar and
C is biotite).
on the trend of the data. The average grain sizes of all the minerals in
these three rocks are estimated based on the microphotographs. The
average grain sizes of BG, LG and WG are about 0.98 mm, 0.74 mm and
0.48 mm, respectively. The average grain sizes for all rocks are in the
ranges of the grain size as reported in the literature.32,33
5. Results and discussions
5.1. Testing procedure and experimental results
The SCB tests were conducted on a material test system (MTS) hy-
draulic servo-control machine. A constant loading speed of 0.001 mm/s
was applied to all tests. The samples were symmetrically supported by
two fixed rollers (pins) with different span distances. Ten different span
distances S were adopted for three rocks: αs = S/(2 R) = 0.40, 0.45,
0.50, 0.55, 0.60, 0.67, 0.70, 0.75, 0.80 and 0.85. Teflon tape was used
to reduce the friction between the rock sample and the two rollers. The
SCB specimens were loaded by the loading plate until the final fracture.
All these SCB tests were performed with the same test procedure as
mentioned above. The complete load-displacement data were recorded
during the tests using a computerized data logger. Fig. 6 shows typical
load-displacement curves obtained from three repeated tests for WB
when αs = 0.67. These curves have similar initial compliances and peak
loads, which indicates that the repeatability of the SCB tests is rea-
sonable. The load-displacement curves were almost linear, showing the
brittle failure behavior of the tested rocks.
The intact and recovered specimens for three rocks with typical
span distances (αs = 0.40, 0.67 and 0.85) are shown in Fig. 7, where the
specimens were perfectly split into two quadrants by a main crack in
the center due to the maximum tensile stress taken place along the
symmetry line. It is observed in Fig. 7 that a tensile crack was initiated
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International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18
from the middle of flat edge of the SCB specimens and then extended
towards the top loading point. In this study, all SCB specimens with αs
in the range of 0.40 and 0.85 exhibit the same failure pattern as shown
in Fig. 7, i.e., the fracture paths for these tested samples were generally
straight without significant curving. The fracture patterns for three
rocks are also identical. Therefore, the SCB tests with αs between 0.40
and 0.85 are valid for these three rocks.
For each type of rock, the average value of flexural tensile strength
under each span distance was measured through three repeated tests.
By using the peak load for each SCB specimen, the corresponding value
of flexural tensile strength was calculated from Eq. (8) for three rocks.
Fig. 8 presents the average value of flexural tensile strengths of three
rocks in SCB tests with different span distances. It can be seen that the
flexural tensile strengths of three rocks generally decrease with the span
distance.
5.2. The physical meaning of the characteristic material length
According to the non-local approach of ASFC,8,12,25 the maximum
direction in Eq. (2) is x direction of the SCB specimen in Fig. 6. In the
SCB test, the tensile strength and the characteristic length in the ASFC
are the intrinsic tensile strength σt and the characteristic material length
δ of rocks, respectively. Hence, Eq. (3) can be rewritten in the following
specific form for the SCB specimen:
l0 + δ
σt δ = ∫l
0
σdl
(9)
where σ is the tensile stress over δ, l0 is the initial length of the fracture
path. For the SCB specimen, l0 is 0.
The tensile stress gradient in the SCB specimen varies with the
different span distances of two pins. Finite element analysis was thus
used to numerically calculate the tensile stress gradient in the SCB
W. Yao et al.
Fig. 5. Microphotographs of two typical areas in WG sample with (a) & (b) transmitted plane polarizers and (c) & (d) crossed-polarizers (A is quartz, B is feldspar and
C is biotite).
Fig. 6. Typical load-displacement curves of tested WB SCB specimens for three
replicates (αs = 0.67).
specimen. A commercial software ANSYS was employed to perform the
finite element analysis and a symmetry boundary is applied to the two-
dimensional finite element model as shown in the insert of Fig. 9. The
quadrilateral PLAIN82 (eight-node) element in ANSYS is implemented
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International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18
to build this model, and the finite element model totally consists of
4601 elements and 14,082 nodes. The static loading forces are acted on
the corresponding points, which is the same as the experimental geo-
metry. Because the prospective facture path of the SCB specimen is
predictable (i.e., the failure commences at point O and along x direction
in the insert of Fig. 9), the stress gradient along the fracture path of the
SCB specimen can be numerically determined. Fig. 9 shows the nor-
malized stress distribution along the fracture path from failure spot to
8 mm since this range of fracture path is sufficient to determine the
characteristic material length scale. Polynomial fits of the normalized
stress gradients of the SCB specimen with different span distances are
expressed as
σ
= Z1 x 2 + Z2 x + Z3
σm (10)
where σ is also the tensile stress along the prospective fracture path,
σm is the tensile stress at the failure spot (i.e., the maximum tensile
stress in the SCB specimen and it is the flexural tensile strength σf at
rock fracture), x is the distance of a point to the failure spot O (see the
insert in Fig. 9), Z1, Z2 and Z3 are the fitting parameters, the values of
which for the SCB specimens with different span distances are given in
Table 3. As a result, with a certain SCB geometry (i.e., a SCB test with a
certain span distance in this study), the relationship between the
characteristic material length scale δ and the intrinsic tensile strength σt
is obtained by substituting Eq. (10) to Eq. (9):
W. Yao et al.
Fig. 7. Typical original and recovered SCB specimens for three granitic rocks (the scale in the picture is 10 mm).
Fig. 8. The flexural tensile strength of three granitic rocks derived from ex-
periments and model.
δ
σt δ = ∫0 [(Z1 x 2 + Z2 x + Z3) σf ] dx
(11)
Because the flexural tensile strengths and the stress gradients are
known for all the SCB geometries here, the intrinsic tensile strength σt
and the characteristic material length δ can be determined by using Eq.
(11). For each granite, we need to find the most suitable value for each
parameter (e.g., σt and δ) to provide a good prediction for all the
flexural tensile strengths under different span distances. It is an opti-
mization process, in which we initially give a reasonable guess to each
parameter, and then calculate the maximum difference between the
flexural tensile strengths predicted from Eq. (11) and the flexural ten-
sile strengths derived from all the SCB experiments with different span
distances; if this difference is not in a satisfactory tolerance, we use
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International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18
different values to redo the calculation and comparison until the dif-
ference satisfies a reasonable tolerance.
There are several methods to perform this optimization process.
Genetic algorithm (GA) and Particle swarm optimization (PSO) are
most popular and widely used.43–47 PSO and GA are both population-
based search approaches and depend on information sharing among
their population members to enhance their search processes using a
combination of deterministic and probabilistic rules. PSO is a relatively
recent heuristic global optimization method, proposed originally by
Kennedy et al.48, attempting to simulate the choreographed, graceful
motion of swarms of birds as part of a sociocognitive study in-
vestigating the notion of “collective intelligence” in biological popula-
tions. It has been approved that the PSO is more computationally effi-
cient (uses less number of function evaluations) than the GA although
the PSO and GA on average yield the same effectiveness (solution
quality).43–47 In addition, the PSO has been developed and utilized in
various geotechnical engineering problems.49–52 Hence, the PSO algo-
rithm is adopted here to optimize the values of σt and δ for three rocks.
In order to save calculation time and to avoid endless iterations in
the PSO, the tolerance between the predicted and experimental flexural
tensile strength is set as 5%. All flexural tensile strengths under dif-
ferent span distances for the same rock are simultaneously used to
conduct the optimization process. With the optimized values of σt and δ
in Table 4, the corresponding predicted flexural tensile strength is ob-
tained and shown in Fig. 8, indicating that the flexural tensile strength
predicted from the non-local failure theory exhibits good agreement
with the data derived from the SCB experiments. Meanwhile, the in-
trinsic tensile strength of three rocks predicted by the non-local failure
theory is close to the data derived from independent experiments using
the BD method. This further proves that the non-local failure theory is
applicable to predict both the intrinsic tensile strength and the material
characteristic length of rocks. In addition, the non-local failure theory
W. Yao et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 110 (2018) 9–18

Fig. 9. The distribution of normalized tensile stress along the prospective fac-
Fig. 10. Average grain size vs. the characteristic material length for three rocks.
ture path in the SCB specimen (x is the distance between a point on the fracture
path and the failure spot in the SCB sample, shown as an insert).
parameter is related to the grain size.15 Thereby, in this study, we as-
Table 3
sume that the different values of the characteristic length result from
The parameters of polynomial fits of the normalized stress gradient. the different grain sizes of three granites because these three granites
have almost the same mineral compositions and mineral proportions.
αs Z1 Z2 Z3
The relationship between the characteristic material length and the
0.40 0.01346 − 0.21249 0.99998 average grain size is shown in Fig. 10, in which the characteristic ma-
0.45 0.01011 − 0.18093 1.00021 terial length is linearly proportional to the average grain size. As a re-
0.50 0.00788 − 0.15850 0.99959 sult, the physical meaning of characteristic material length can be
0.55 0.00634 − 0.14239 0.99893
considered as the scaled average grain size of rocks:
0.60 0.00524 − 0.13064 0.99847
0.67 0.00417 − 0.11903 0.99819 δ = kdg (12)
0.70 0.00381 − 0.11520 0.99818
0.75 0.00330 − 0.11004 0.99829
where dg is the average grain size of rocks, k is the fitting constant
0.80 0.00288 − 0.10585 0.99853
0.85 0.00250 − 0.10236 0.99884
and k = 4.68 as determined from data (Table 4 and Fig. 10).

5.3. Two-parameter tensile strength model

Table 4
The values of σt and δ for three granitic rocks.
BG LG
δ (mm) 7.284 5.572
σt (MPa) 9.80 14.31
can be used to explain the phenomenon that the flexural tensile
strength of three rocks decreases with the span distance in Fig. 8. As
shown in Fig. 9, the stress gradient along the perspective fracture path
in the SCB specimen decreases with the span distance. In other words,
the smaller the span distance, the lower the average local stress in the
same specific distance (the length to the failure spot O along the x di-
rection). In this case, if both the characteristic material length scale and
intrinsic tensile strength are the same (i.e., for the same rock), the
flexural tensile strength under the smaller span distance is higher than
that under the larger span distance based on the non-local theory (Eq.
(11)). Therefore the flexural tensile strength of a granite increases with
the decrease of the span distance in the SCB test.
As discussed above, the tensile stress gradient exists in the SCB
configuration, leading to the variation of the flexural tensile strength of
rocks under different span distances. This behavior is successfully ex-
plained by the non-local failure theory. Besides, the non-local failure
theory gives a remarkable interpretation about the discrepancy be-
tween the BD results and the SCB results of three granites in this study
and other rocks in the literature.2,3,5,6,11,12 Furthermore, the different
values of the characteristic length for various rocks have been proposed
by many researchers.2,3,5,6,11,12 However, the physical meaning of the
characteristic material length δ in the non-local failure theory is still
vague.
It is well known that the characteristic length as a material
One can see that the flexural tensile strengths of rocks with different
WG bending configurations are governed by two parameters: the char-
acteristic material length δ and the rock intrinsic tensile strength σt.
4.928 Based on the successful application of the non-local theory, we pro-
13.56
posed a two-parameter tensile strength model for general tensile fail-
ures. In this model, the flexural tensile strength σf for different specimen
configurations can be determined through the intrinsic tensile strength
σt and the characteristic material length scale δ. This model can be
expressed as:
σf = f (δ , σt ) (13)
where the function f has to be determined by stress analysis using
analytical or numerical methods. In the study, the expression of the
function f can be obtained by integrating Eq. (11). In addition, the
material characteristic length δ has a positive correlation with the rock
grain size, Eq. (13) can thus be rewritten as
σf = f (kdg , σt ) (14)
The two-parameter tensile failure model proposed here establishes
the relationship between the flexural tensile strength and the intrinsic
tensile strength of rocks through the average rock grain size. With this
relationship, the flexural tensile strength of rocks can be obtained
through the intrinsic tensile strength σt and the average rock grain size
dg, which are two material constants for rocks. This model gives an
effective approach to determine the flexural tensile strength of rocks
with different bending configurations. It can also be widely applied to
assess the rock structure safety when subjected to bending load without
conducting a series of bending tests, contributing to the efficient and
economical design for rock constructions, where the tensile strength is
commonly used instead of the flexural tensile strength.

16
W. Yao et al.
6. Conclusions
In this work, we first reviewed three most popular non-local failure
criteria based on strength evaluation. The fracture criterion based on
average stress over a characteristic length (ASFC) was then used in this
work to determine the physical meaning of the characteristic material
length. The flexural tensile strengths of three typical granitic rocks
featuring different grain sizes were measured using the semi-circular
bending (SCB) test with different configurations. A special holder was
designed to achieve the different loading configurations in the SCB
tests. A constant loading speed of 0.001 mm/s was applied to all SCB
tests conducted on a MTS machine.
The specimens were perfectly split into two quadrants by a main
crack in the center. The flexural tensile strengths of three rocks gen-
erally decrease with the span distance. Based on the different loading
conditions, the optimized values of the characteristic material length
scale δ and the rock intrinsic tensile strength σt were determined for
these three rocks. It is found the intrinsic tensile strength of three rocks
predicted by the non-local failure theory has good agreement with the
data derived from independent experiments using Brazilian disc
method, theoretically reconciling the difference between the flexural
tensile strength due to bending and the tensile strength. Further, the
non-local failure theory was used to explain the phenomenon that the
flexural tensile strength of three rocks decreases with the span distance.
In addition, the material characteristic length δ has a positive correla-
tion with the rock grain size. Hence, the physical meaning of char-
acteristic material length can be considered as of the scaled average
grain size of rocks.
Based on the successful application of the non-local theory, a two-
parameter tensile failure model for general tensile failure was proposed.
This model provides an alternative and effective approach to determine
the flexural tensile strength of rocks with different bending configura-
tions. It can also be widely applied to assess the rock structure subjected
to bending load without conducting a series of bending tests.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the
Discovery Grant # 72031326. This work was partially supported by
Mitacs through the Mitacs Accelerate program.
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