The evolution of rock failure with discontinuities due to shear creep

A two-dimensional brittle creep model for rock provides insight into the initiation of shear fracture along weak discontinuities in rock. The model accounts for material heterogeneity and introduces the concept of a mesoscopic renormalization to capture the cooperative interaction between cracks in the transition from distributed to localized damage. A series of shear creep tests on rock with discontinuities were performed to simulate the...