MODELING THE DIRECT TENSILE STRENGTH FOR LIGNITE EXTRACTED AT U.M.C. PESTEANA USING THE FINITE-DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD (FDEM)

Abstract

In rock mechanics labs, the tensile strength test is carried out by either direct or indirect methods. Among indirect test methods, the most common is a diametrical compression on a disk specimen, also known as the Brazilian Tensile Strength (BTS) test. Testing by direct methods is cumbersome because attaching specimens into the testing machine clamps is difficult because of the dog-bone shape, and also because the clamping of the specimen may cause an uneven distribution of stresses, so that the results obtained are unreliable or vitiated. Thus, numerical methods replicating this type of testing are welcome, hence in this paper the direct tensile strength test of a dog-bone shaped specimen of lignite will be conducted using numerical methods offered by IRAZU Software.

Keywords

• direct tensile strength
• lignite
• mesh
• stress
• fdem
• dogbone shaped specimen