Abstract： In rock mechanics and engineering field, the D-P strength criterion has the drawbacks of lacking the effect of the stress angle and the overestimating the tensile-shear region. In order to make the D-P strength criteria more consistent with the failure mechanisms of the rock, the following works are carried out based on the elastic strain energy. Firstly, elastic strain energy based on the invariant of stress is divided into deviatoric elastic strain energy related to the second invariant of deviatoric stress and the tensor elastic strain energ related to the second invariant of stress tensor. Secondly, the reasons of the defect and the physical significance of the D-P strength criteria are proposed. Based on the results, a generalized D-P (GD-P) strength criterion is established to describe basic failure characteristics such as stress angle and the oversized tensile-shear region. Lastly, the failure strengths of four kinds of rocks are calculated. The results by the GD-P strength criteria is more accurate and error is more stable. The generalized strength criterion breaks the hypotheses that Poisson's ratio is always 0.5, which is of great significance for accurate quantitative analysis of yield and failure characteristics of the rock.
