A Thermal Damage Constitutive Model for Oil Shale Based on Weibull Statistical Theory

In this work, we first studied the thermal damage to typical rocks, assuming that the strength of thermally damaged rock microelements obeys a Weibull distribution and considering the influence of temperature on rock mechanical parameters; under the condition that microelement failure conforms to the Drucker–Prager criterion, the statistical thermal damage constitutive model of rocks after high-temperature exposure was established. On this basis, conventional triaxial compression tests were carried out on oil shale specimens heated to different temperatures, and according to the results of these tests, the relationship between the temperature and parameters in the statistical thermal damage constitutive model was determined, and the thermal damage constitutive model for oil shale was established. The results show that the thermal damage in oil shale increases with the increase of temperature; the damage variable is largest at 700°C, reaching 0.636; from room temperature to 700°C, the elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio decrease by 62.66% and 64.57%, respectively; the theoretical stress-strain curve obtained from the model is in good agreement with the measured curves; the maximum difference between the two curves before peak strength is only 5 × 10 −4 ; the model accurately reflects the deformation characteristics of oil shale at high temperature. The research results are of practical significance to the underground in situ thermal processing of oil shale.