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The common failure mechanism for brittle rocks is known to be axial splitting which happens parallel to the direction of maximum compression. One of the mechanisms proposed for modelling of axial splitting is the sliding crack or so called, "wing crack" model. Fairhurst-Cook model explains this specific type of failure which starts by a pre-crack and finally breaks the rock by propagating 2-D cracks under uniaxial compression. In this paper, optimization of this model has been considered and the process has been done by a complete sensitivity analysis on the main parameters of the model and excluding the trends of their changes and also their limits and "peak points". Later on this paper, three artificial intelligence algorithms including Particle Swarm Intelligence (PSO), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and genetic algorithm (GA) has been used and compared in order to achieve optimized sets of parameters resulting in near-maximum or near-minimum amounts of wedging forces creating a wing crack.

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