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A new rock brittleness index on the basis of punch penetration test data

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DOI: 10.12989/gae.2020.21.4.391

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Geomechanics and Engineering, Vol. 21, No. 4 (2020) 391-399
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/gae.2020.21.4.391 391

A new rock brittleness index on the basis of punch penetration test data
Saleh Ghadernejad1, Hamid Reza Nejati2 and Saffet Yagiz3
1
School of Mining Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2
Rock Mechanics Division, School of Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
3
School of Mining and Geosciences, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan City, Kazakhstan

(Received November 9, 2019, Revised April 2, 2020, Accepted April 7, 2020)

Abstract. Brittleness is one of the most important properties of rock which has a major impact not only on the failure process
of intact rock but also on the response of rock mass to tunneling and mining projects. Due to the lack of a universally accepted
definition of rock brittleness, a wide range of methods, including direct and indirect methods, have been developed for its
measurement. Measuring rock brittleness by direct methods requires special equipment which may lead to financial
inconveniences and is usually unavailable in most of rock mechanic laboratories. Accordingly, this study aimed to develop a
new strength-based index for predicting rock brittleness based on the obtained base form. To this end, an innovative algorithm
was developed in Matlab environment. The utilized algorithm finds the optimal index based on the open access dataset including
the results of punch penetration test (PPT), uniaxial compressive and Brazilian tensile strength. Validation of proposed index
was checked by the coefficient of determination (R2), the root mean square error (RMSE), and also the variance for account
(VAF). The results indicated that among the different brittleness indices, the suggested equation is the most accurate one, since it
has the optimal R2, RMSE and VAF as 0.912, 3.47 and 89.8%, respectively. It could finally be concluded that, using the
proposed brittleness index, rock brittleness can be reliably predicted with a high level of accuracy.
Keywords: brittleness index; punch penetration test; new formulation; rock strength

1. Introduction Furthermore, in shale gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing,

brittleness plays a major role in the amount of gas output,
In the field of mining and geology engineering, particularly in tight gas reservoirs. In fact, the degree of
brittleness is considered as one of the most crucial fracturing is controlled not only by the injection pressure
properties of rock, as it plays an important role not only in but also by the brittleness of shales (Meng et al. 2015,
the failure process of intact rocks but also in the rock mass Kahraman et al. 2018).
response to tunneling and mining projects. Rock brittleness Over the last couple of decades, numerous studies have
has been utilized for assessment of rock burst, stability of been conducted in order to describe rock brittleness, and
underground, fatigue damage, penetrability, cuttability, also to investigate the effects of rock brittleness on different
drillability and sawability of rocks (Singh 1986, Altindag geo-engineering problems. Currently, due to the lack of a
2002, Gong and Zhao 2007, Altindag 2010, Nejati and universally accepted standard for rock brittleness, a wide
Ghazvinian 2014, Akinbinu 2016, Mikaeil et al. 2017, range of methods, including direct and indirect methods,
Yagiz 2017, Haeri et al. 2018, Chen et al. 2018, Mikaeil et have been developed. One of the most commonly utilized
al. 2018).Various researchers have considered brittleness as methods for direct measurement of rock brittleness has been
a combination of rock properties, rather than any one developed by Yagiz (2009), who defined rock brittleness as
specific property (Yagiz 2009, Meng et al. 2015, the ratio of the maximum applied force on the rock sample
Khandelwal et al. 2016). As a consequence, there is no to the corresponding penetration at that force in PPT. The
universally approved concept or method for precisely proposed method by Yagiz (2009) needs specific equipment
defining rock brittleness. As a general law, in comparison to which is expensive and unavailable in most of rock
ductile rocks, a brittle rock demonstrates very little plastic mechanic laboratories. Due to the lack of access to the
deformation at breakage phase (Yagiz 2009, Meng et al. necessary equipment and complexity of PPT, most of
2015, Haeri and Sarfarazi 2017). researchers have utilized indirect brittleness indices in order
Brittleness as a property of rock has a major impact on to investigate the effects of rock brittleness in different
the failure process. For instance, one of the most dominant circumstances. It also must be noted that the existing
phenomena frequently observed in deep mining and brittleness indices have been developed for a wide range of
tunneling projects is rock burst, a brittle failure process purposes and projects. For this reason, this study aimed to
which releases large amount of energy (Meng et al. 2015). develop a new brittleness index based on the results of PPT.

Corresponding author, Associate Professor 2. Rock brittleness

E-mail: h.nejati@modares.ac.ir
2.1 Definitions
Copyright © 2020 Techno-Press, Ltd.
http://www.techno-press.org/?journal=gae&subpage=7 ISSN: 2005-307X (Print), 2092-6219 (Online)
392 Saleh Ghadernejad, Hamid Reza Nejati and Saffet Yagiz

Fig. 1 The difference between ductile and brittle Fig. 2 Punch penetration test apparatus and sample
fracturing (Nejati and Ghazvinian 2014) preparation (Yagiz 2009)

Morely (1944) defined brittleness as a parameter

opposite of ductility, which was itself defined as a property
of material that, under a certain amount of tension, leads to
being drawn out to smaller section. In a same vein, Hetenyi
(1966) described brittleness as the lack of ductility, and
mentioned that brittleness is a relative concept, as it lacks a
specific quantity and the amount of brittleness is contingent
upon degree of reduction in the area. Obert and Duvall
(1967) also mentioned that materials like cast iron, in
addition to other rocks that are generally fractured in just a
little higher stresses than yield stress level, demonstrate
brittle failure behavior. Moreover, Ramsay (1967) defined
failing tendency as the time when internal cohesiveness of
rock materials deforming in the elastic range is removed. It
was also added that stress condition in the moment of
failure is defined in accordance to stress criteria of brittle
strength. In Glossary of geology and related sciences, this
parameter is described as a property of materials in which Fig. 3 Measurement of rock brittleness using force-
fracture and rupture occur without no or almost no plastic penetration profile (Yagiz 2009)
flow (Hucka and Das 1974). The general difference
between ductile and brittle fracturing is depicted in Fig. 1.
Perhaps the best definition of rock brittleness was 2.2 Measurement methods
offered by Bieniawski (1979): “brittle fracture defined as a
fracture that exhibits no or little permanent (plastic) Over the years, numerous methods have been proposed
deformation”. This definition contrasts ductile fracture, in by various researchers to measure rock brittleness. These
which prior to the fracture significant plastic deformations methods can be categorized in two distinct groups,
occur. Lastly, based on the brittle facture mechanism and including direct and indirect methods. Nowadays, direct
the result of experiments, Bieniawski (1979) presented the measurement of the rock brittleness can be performed using
following stages for brittle facture of the rock under multi- either PPT or brittleness values test. Measuring the rock
axial stress loading: brittleness by direct methods requires special devices which
are expensive and generally unavailable in most of the rock
• Closing of cracks mechanic laboratories.
• Linear elastic deformation Yagiz (2009) proposed a direct method to measure the
• Stable fracture propagation rock brittleness using the results of PPT. The process of the
• Unstable fracture propagation PPT and sample preparation is shown in Fig. 2. For further
• Forking and coalescence of cracks description of the utilized apparatus with the test procedure
Hajiabdolmajid and Kaiser (2003) defined brittleness as refer to Yagiz (2009). He stated that the rock brittleness can
one of the properties of geo-materials, in which be determined using the slope of obtained force-penetration
heterogeneities exist between mechanical and geometrical profile in the PPT. An example of such a force-penetration
properties and that loading conditions lead to a non- profile is illustrated in Fig. 3. As it is shown, the slope was
homogeneous distribution of stress in the failing mass, determined by drawing a line from the origin of the force-
which ultimately results in the potential for fracture along penetration profile to the maximum applied force. In other
the plane. In addition to the above-mentioned definitions, words, the measured rock brittleness is defined as the ratio
various other definitions, more or less similar to the ones of maximum applied force on specimen to the
mentioned, have been provided for this property of rock. corresponding penetration (Eq. (1)).
 A new rock brittleness index on the basis of punch penetration test data 393

where, σc and σt are UCS and BTS of the rock, respectively.

Fmax
BI m  (1)
P 2.3 Applications of strength-based brittleness indices
where BIm is measured rock brittleness in kN/mm, Fmax is The strength-based brittleness indices have been widely
maximum applied force on a rock sample in kN and P is the utilized by researchers for a wide range of geo-mechanical
corresponding penetration at maximum force in mm. applications. In what follows, the most important and well-
For the sake of simplicity, a number of brittleness known studies are reviewed. Goktan (1991) investigated the
indices based on different concepts have been proposed for relationship between the rock brittleness (B2) and specific
indirect measuring rock brittleness. In what follows, energy in the rock cutting process, whose results indicated
commons indirect methods and indices pertaining to the no significant relationship between specific energy and B 2.
rock brittleness, offered by the literature, are reported. The It was concluded that having only one definition for
synthesis of these methods is available in Meng et al. brittleness is not advisable. Altindag (2002), after reviewing
(2015). Meng et al. (2015) summarized the existing the factors affecting the drill-ability of rocks, performed an
brittleness indices as follows: extensive study in order to investigate the relationship
indices attained from stress – strain curve between drill-ability and rock brittleness indices. The result
• Based on the strength showed that, among the available indices (B 1 and B3), there
• Based on the deformation is a strong and significant relationship between B 3 and
• Based on the energy mechanical properties of rock like point load index, density,
indices attained from physical – mechanical property wave velocity, and cone indenter.
• Based on the hardness In another experimental research, Kahraman (2002)
• Based on the fines content stated that drill-ability of rotary drilling and bore-ability of
• Based on the penetration test tunnel boring machine (TBM) can be predicted from
• Based on the point load testing machine parameters and rock properties. He performed
• Based on the friction angle statistical analysis in order to study the correlation between
• Based on the mineral composition existing brittleness indices (B1 and B2) and rock drill-ability,
As mentioned previously, due to the lack of a standard and also bore-ability. The results of this research indicated
definition and/or a universally accepted measurement an exponential relationship between TBM penetration rate
method for rock brittleness, various brittleness indices have and B1 and B2. It also showed that, there is no relationship
been introduced based on different concepts. Among a pool between drill-ability and brittleness indices. Altindag (2003)
of brittleness indices, for the sake of simplicity and carried out an experimental study to investigate the
availability of testing equipment pertaining to strength of relationship between rock cutting specific energy and
materials, strength-based brittleness indices have been various brittleness indices include B1, B2 and B3. The results
widely utilized in a wide range of researches. Parameters in suggested that specific energy has a strong and meaningful
these indices include uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) relationship with B3.
and Brazilian tensile strength (BTS). Literature review Goktan and Yilmaz (2005) stated that rock brittleness
revealed that four widely used strength-based brittleness plays an important role in the performance of drilling picks
indices are B1, B2, B3 and B4 (Eqs. (2)-(5)). in rocks and prevents crack propagation and its spreading.
Hucka and Das (1974) defined B1 as the ratio of UCS to They studied the correlation between normalized specific
BTS. Additionally, they stated that an increase in the energy and B2 as a widely used brittleness index. The
difference between the compressive strength and tensile results suggested a meaningful relationship between these
strength is associated with an increase in brittleness (Eq. two parameters. Atici and Ersoy (2009) performed an
(2)). By considering this fact, Hucka and Das (1974) extensive study for examining the correlation between
provided another brittleness index. In this case, B 2 is specific energy of cut-ability and drill-ability with different
defined as the ratio of UCS minus BTS to UCS plus BTS brittleness indices, including B1, B2, and B3. B3 was
(Eq. (3)). Subsequently, Altindag (2002) introduced another observed to have the most statistically significant
strength-based brittleness index. B3 was defined as “the area correlation with specific energy compared with other
under line in relation to compressive strength and tensile indices. Yagiz (2009) utilized the data of 48 tunneling
strength” (Eq. (4)). More recently, Yarali and Soyer (2012) projects from all over the world and attempted at
suggested B4 based on the results of laboratory, in a study introducing a new index of brittleness. The study resulted in
pertaining to rotary drilling (Eq. (5)). suggesting a new brittleness index based on PPT. Yagiz
B1   c /  t  (2) studied the relationship between the new Index with the
existing brittleness value (B1, B2 and B3) and stated that the
demonstrated relationship is acceptable.
B2   c   t  /  c   t  (3) Altindag (2010), by performing simple regression
analyses on raw data obtained from the literature,
investigated the relationship between penetration rate (PR)
B3   c  t  / 2 (4) of rock drilling and different brittleness indices. It was
firstly concluded that a low correlation coefficient, ranging
B4   c   t  from 0 to 0.66, exists between PR and B 1 and B2, and that
0.72
(5)
correlation coefficient of PR with B3 and B4 is higher,
394 Saleh Ghadernejad, Hamid Reza Nejati and Saffet Yagiz

ranging from 0.64 to 0.92. Subsequently, this researcher

B4   c   t    c 0.72   t 0.72
0.72
used PRn index (normalized penetration rate) instead of PR, (8)
which resulted in finding no meaningful relationship
between PRn index and B1 and B2. Nevertheless, a stronger Form Eqs. (6)-(8), it can be inferred that B 1, B3, and B4
relationship was observed between B4 and PRn compared have an identical base form as follows:
with B4 and PR. B   cx  t y (9)
Heidari et al. (2014) claimed that brittleness indices and
porosity are related to one another, as brittleness indices are In fact, it can be stated that the main difference between
related to UCS and BTS, two parameters which are in fact Eqs. (2),(3) and (5) is related to the powers of UCS and
affected by porosity. The utilized brittleness indices were BTS in these equations. In this research, Eq. (9) is selected
B1, B2, and B3. In this research, statistical analysis method as the base form of the new brittleness index. In this regard,
was utilized in order to investigate the relationship between this study aimed to find the optimal x and y for Eq. (9).
brittleness indices and rock porosity in dry and saturated
conditions. The results showed that the utilized brittleness 3.2 Materials and methods
indices had a weak relationship with rock porosity in both
dry and saturated conditions.
In this study, an open access dataset published by Yagiz
Mikaeil et al. (2014) conducted a study in order to
investigate the relationship between system vibration as an (2009) was utilized for calculating the coefficients of
important parameter in measurement of rock sawing suggested equation. Dataset was composed of various rocks
process and different brittleness indices. The utilized including sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks.
brittleness indices in this research were B 1, B2, B3 and B4. Rock types pertaining to the dataset are categorized by
The researchers claimed that B3 and B4 are the most percentage in Fig. 4. The first part of dataset was
appropriate brittleness indices for estimating vibration established by performing UCS and BTS tests in
system in rock sawing process. Nejati and Moosavi (2016) accordance with ASTM (1995) standard. The second part of
studied the relationship between fracture toughness related dataset is the measured values of rock brittleness which was
to mode I and II (KIC and KIIC, respectively) and different established by carrying out PPT according to Yagiz (2009).
brittleness indices. Statistical Analysis showed that B4 The tests were conducted at the Earth Mechanics Institute
among different brittleness indices has the highest of Colorado School of mines, in the USA. The basic
correlation with both KIC and KIIC. descriptive statistics of the open access database, including
Ko et al. (2016) investigated the relationship between 48 cases, are given in Table 1. It should be mentioned that
Cerchar Abrasiveness Index (CAI) and different brittleness in this research, the open access database was divided into
indices of igneous and metamorphic rocks. The results two groups randomly: one group for calculating the
showed that B1 and B3 have the highest impact on CAI in coefficients of Eq. (9) including 75% of the datasets (i.e., 36
igneous and metamorphic rocks, respectively. Mikaeil et al. datasets) and the other group including the rest of the
(2017) conducted extensive researches in order to datasets (i.e., 12 datasets) for testing the performance of
investigate the effect of brittleness on the amount of energy proposed model.
used in the rock sawing process. The utilized data were
categorized into two groups of hard and soft rocks, with
accordance to the nature of the fracture process in hard and Table 1 Basic descriptive statistics of the open access
soft rocks. The results indicated a strong relationship dataset
between B3 index, in both categories, with the amount of
Parameter (unit) Min. Max. Ave. SD Var.
specific energy.
UCS (MPa) 9.5 327 126.38 70.25 4936.33
BTS (MPa) 2.3 17.8 7.81 3.41 11.63
3. Development of the new brittleness index
BIm (kN/mm) 10 45 27.45 9.41 88.59
3.1 Derivation of the base form

The strength-based brittleness indices, as the most

common ones, have been developed based on diverse
assumptions for different purposes. As discussed in the
previous section, based on the different combinations of
uniaxial compressive and tensile strength, four different
brittleness indices were developed. By considering these
equations, it is revealed that, among the four indices, three
of them have the same form. In fact, Eqs. (2),(3) and (5) can
be rewritten as follow:
B1   c /  t    c1  t 1 (6)

 c   t  1
B3    c1   t1 (7) Fig. 4 Distribution of rock types pertaining to the open
2 2 access dataset
 A new rock brittleness index on the basis of punch penetration test data 395

Fig. 6 Graphical representation of R2 for all scenarios

Fig. 7 Graphical representation of R2 for interested areas

to 10, x is increased by 0.01 and y is reset to -10 and the

whole process are repeated until x reaches to 10.
Fig. 5 Flowchart of utilized algorithm in Matlab
In this study, in order to find the optimal pair of (x, y),
4004001 scenarios were checked in total. The results of this
3.3 Calculation of x and y study are depicted in Fig. 6, which represents the filled
contour plot of R2 for all pairs of (x, y). The x-axis and y-
In order to calculate the coefficients of suggested axis are related to y and x values related to Eq. (9),
equation (Eq. (9)), an innovative algorithm was developed respectively. As it can be seen from the figure, the central
in Matlab environment. All possible scenarios for x and y, areas show higher values of R2 than the rest of areas.
ranging from -10 to 10 with 0.01 incremental step, are Therefore, a detailed investigation is performed with
checked by proposed algorithm, and subsequently, the best regards to the central areas. To this end, the interest area is
scenario of (x, y) with the highest value of R2 and the limited to -2<x<2, and -2<y<2. The obtained results for the
lowest value of RMSE, are selected. The flowchart of interest area are shown in Fig. 7.
utilized algorithm is illustrated in Fig. 5. In the following, The result showed that the optimal value for pair of (x,
the general process of the algorithm is discussed. y) is equal to (1.26, -0.76). In this case, not only R2 is the
In the first step, the open access dataset provided by highest value but also the RMSE is the lowest value among
Yagiz (2009) is loaded. In the following, algorithm all the scenarios. After substituting this pair in Eq. (9), the
considers both of x and y equal to -10. At this time, final form of suggested brittleness index was achieved as
Algorithm calculates Eq. (9) and stores the result in a vector (Eq. (10)):
column. Subsequently, the simple regression analysis is
performed between the results of previous step and  c1.26
Bnew   c1.26   t 0.76  (10)
measured values of rock brittleness. The results of simple  t 0.76
regression including R 2 and RMES are stored in two
different matrices. In the next step, y is increased by 0.01 If the equipment pertaining to PPT which is expensive
and the process is repeated until y reaches 10. By reaching y and generally uncommon laboratory system in present is not
396 Saleh Ghadernejad, Hamid Reza Nejati and Saffet Yagiz

Finally, based on the proposed index, a classification

system is suggested in order to categorize rock brittleness
into five distinct classes (Table 2). The graphical
representation of the suggested classification is illustrated in
Fig. 9. In fact, using Fig. 9, it is possible to determine the
degree of the rock brittleness directly based on BTS and
UCS.
In addition, the results of PPT is scattered along with the
classification system, as it is shown in Fig. 9. The red points
correspond to the PPT data and their size corresponds to
their value, the bigger the higher value. Also, the applicable
range of the proposed classification system is marked by a
yellow dashed ellipse. It should be point out that the
proposed classification tries to assign a class for a given
rock sample with arbitrary pair of (σc, σt). There is maybe
Fig. 8 Relationship between measured brittleness and no rock, for instance, with σc=400 and σt = 1 MPa, however,
Bnew (train data) it is too hard to define a precise relationship between these
two parameters. Hence, it was tried to consider all possible
conditions for σc and σt, as it was previously considered for
x and y in Eq. (9).

4. Comparison of the proposed brittleness index

with pervious indices

In this section, the performance of the suggested

brittleness index (Eq. (10)) is compared with Eqs. (2)-(5).
For this purpose, 12 datasets, which were not incorporated
in the development of the suggested index, were used for
model testing and validating. In order to evaluate the
performance of predictive models, predicted values from
each model were compared with the measured brittleness
using PPT. The comparison between measured rock
Fig. 9 Graphical representation of the suggested brittleness and the predicted ones using Eqs. (2)-(5) and
classification (10) can be found in Table 3. Moreover, the relationship
between measured brittleness index and predicted values
Table 2 Suggested rock brittleness classification
form suggested and existing brittleness indices are depicted
Class Brittleness index (MPa^0.5) Brittleness description in Figs. 10-14. Furthermore, the relative error of predictive
I Bnew  160 Very High models (Eqs. (2)-(5) and (10)) from measured values was
calculated and is presented graphically in Fig. 15. The
II 120  Bnew  160 High
obtained results showed that the relative errors range of the
III 80  Bnew  120 Medium predicted values for proposed index (-0.18 to +0.17) is
IV 40  Bnew  80 Moderate smaller than the relative errors range of B 1 (-0.26 to +0.27),
B2(-0.25 to +0.23), B3 (-0.21 to +0.30) and B4 (-0.21 to
V Bnew  40 Low

available, the proposed brittleness index (Bnew) can be used

to estimate the rock brittleness. The relationship between
measured brittleness and Bnew is shown in Fig. 8.
In addition, investigation showed that there is a
singularity in accordance to the pair of (0,0). In this point,
R2 dramatically decreases to zero. The logical explanation
for the occurrence of this singularity is that replacing (0,0)
in Eq. (9) leads to Eq. (9) returns 1 for all values of σc and
σt, as given in Eq. (11).
B   c0   t 0  1 (11)
In this condition, there is no relationship between
measured and predicted brittleness, and therefore the value Fig. 10 Relationship between measured brittleness and B1
of R2 for the pair of (0,0) decreases to zero. (test data)
 A new rock brittleness index on the basis of punch penetration test data 397

Table 3 The comparison between measured rock brittleness and predicted brittleness using different indices
Predicted Rock brittleness using
No Rock type UCS (MPa) BTS (MPa) BIm (kN/mm) Brittleness Class
B1 B2 B3 B4 Bnew
1 Sedimentary 120 6.2 30.5 34.25 34.20 26.39 25.07 27.27 III
2 Metamorphic 227 12.7 36.8 31.08 31.20 38.00 38.47 33.25 II
3 Sedimentary 143 6.9 29.8 37.18 36.81 28.81 27.41 30.40 III
4 Sedimentary 150 7.3 36 36.80 36.48 29.71 28.33 30.81 II
5 Metamorphic 95 7.7 21.9 19.23 18.16 26.25 24.94 19.41 IV
6 Igneous 165 8.9 27 32.50 32.57 32.22 31.08 30.01 III
7 Igneous 57 4.2 21 21.87 21.29 16.68 17.52 17.24 IV
8 Metamorphic 182 11.2 34.5 27.60 27.66 35.03 34.48 28.76 III
9 Sedimentary 78 5.6 20 22.63 22.17 21.83 21.18 19.38 IV
10 Igneous 81 5.5 22 24.34 24.11 22.00 21.32 20.23 IV
11 Metamorphic 52 4.7 13 16.50 14.84 16.85 17.63 15.17 IV
12 Igneous 327 17.2 45 33.51 33.52 43.73 47.53 40.09 I

Table 4 performance indices values for each brittleness index

BI Number Type Equation R2 VAF(%) RMSE
B1 (1) Linear BI m  2.14B1  7.18 0.615 61.5 5.36
B2 (2) Power BI m  103.72 B 2
10.73
0.747 63.2 5.25
B3 (3) Log BI m  8.57ln( B3 )  24.33 0.839 83.9 3.47
B4 (4) Power BI m  3.098B 0.439
4 0.788 81.7 3.70
Bnew (9) Linear BI m  0.227Bnew  5.750 0.912 89.8 3.47

Fig. 11 Relationship between measured brittleness and B2 Fig. 13 Relationship between measured brittleness and B 4
(test data) (test data)

Fig. 12 Relationship between measured brittleness and B 3 Fig. 14 Relationship between measured brittleness and
(test data) Bnew (test data)
398 Saleh Ghadernejad, Hamid Reza Nejati and Saffet Yagiz

showed that the optimal values for coefficients of UCS and

BTS are 1.26, -0.76, respectively. The performance of
proposed model was compared to existing strength-based
brittleness indices using three performance indices
including R2, RMSE and VAF (%). The results showed,
among the different brittleness indices, the suggested
equation is the most accurate one, since it has the optimal
R2, RMSE and VAF (%) as 0.912, 3.47 and 89.8%,
respectively. It could finally be concluded that, using the
suggested brittleness index, rock brittleness can be
predicted with a high level of accuracy. It is evident that the
proposed models are developed using a limited series of
Fig. 15 Comparing relative errors of each strength-based experimental data and should be utilized in the same
brittleness indices conditions.

+0.36). Hence, it can be stated that the most accurate Acknowledgments

predictor is the suggested index in this study.
In addition, in this study three indices including R 2, The authors would like to thank the students and staff at
RMSE, and variance account for (VAF) between measured the Earth Mechanics Institute, Colorado School of Mines,
and predicted values of rock brittleness were used to too numerous to mention, whose work over the last couple
evaluate the performance of suggested index. A model is of decades has led to the currently existing rock test
considered to be properly developed when R2 is 1, VAF is database.
100% and RMSE is 0. Eqs. (12) and (13) were utilized to
calculate the RMSE and VAF, respectively.
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
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