David Oliveira

Comparison between Models of Rock Discontinuity Strength and Deformation

One important component in the design of tunnels in urban areas is a correct assessment of the interaction between the underground excavation with other structures in the vicinity. In this sense a correct stress-strain response by the model representing the rock mass behavior is essential. The shear and normal displacement of rock discontinuities and their shear and normal stiffness control the distribution of stress and displacement within a discontinuous rock mass. In conditions where an equivalent continuum based approach is not applicable, the joint material model should be able to describe important mechanisms such as asperity sliding and shearing, post-peak behavior, asperity deformation, and the effect of soft infilling. The distinct element code UDEC was used to simulate the direct shear tests on a natural joint profile, and the prediction of two existing models of discontinuity strength and deformation were then compared with a new soil-infilled joint model and with experimental data for clean and soil-infilled rock joints. A numerical modeling of a cavern excavated in a jointed medium is also presented to illustrate the response of different models. The proposed soil-infilled joint model described more comprehensively the occurrence of dilation and compression with lateral displacements and also better represented the double peak shearing in relation to the adopted squeezing mechanism that could not be captured by the two existing models.

Critical review on shear strength models for soil-infilled joints

An infilled rock joint is likely to be the weakest plane in a rock mass. The presence of infill material within the joint significantly reduces the friction of the discontinuity boundaries (i.e. rock to rock contact of the joint walls). The thicker the infill, the smaller the shear strength of the rock joint. Once the infill reaches a critical thickness, the infill material governs the overall shear strength, and the joint walls (rock) play no significant role. Several models have been proposed to predict the peak shear strength of soil-infilled joints under both constant normal load (CNL) and constant normal stiffness (CNS) boundary conditions, taking into account the ratio of infill thickness (t) to the height of the joint wall asperity (a). CNS models provide a more realistic picture of the soil-infilled joint behaviour in the field. This paper presents a critical review on the existing mathematical models for predicting the shear strength of soil-infilled rock joint and verifies the normalised peak shear stress model with further laboratory investigations carried out on idealised saw-tooth rock joints at the University of Wollongong. Based on the prediction of the experimental data, the normalised peak shear stress model is slightly modified by the authors. A simplified approach for using this model in practice is presented and a new expression for prediction of dilatation at peak shear stress is suggested.

Modelling the Shear Behaviour of Clean Rock Discontinuities Using Artificial Neural Networks

Since the mechanical behaviour of rock masses is influenced by the shear behaviour of their discontinuities, analytical models are being developed to describe the shear behaviour of rock discontinuities. The aim of this paper is to present a model to predict the shear behaviour of clean rock discontinuities developed by using artificial neural networks (ANN), as an alternative to the existing analytical models which sometimes require certain parameters obtained from large-scale laboratory tests which are not always available. Results from direct shear tests on different boundary conditions and types of discontinuities have been used to develop this ANN model, whose input parameters contain the boundary normal stiffness, the initial normal stress, the joint roughness coefficient, the compressive strength of the intact rock, the basic friction angle and the horizontal displacement of a joint. This proposed ANN model fits the experimental data better than some existing analytical models, and it can satisfactorily describe how governing parameters influence the shear behaviour of clean rock discontinuities. This paper also presents a practical application where the proposed ANN model is used to analyse the stability of a rock slope.

PHYSICAL MODELING OF SOIL-INFILLED DISCONTINUITIES

Soil-infilled discontinuities adversely affect the overall strength of rock mass because, the soft infill material, especially when saturated, drastically reduces the shear strength of the rock joint. Due to all the uncertainties arising from sample heterogeneity and scale effects, physical modeling of rock joints becomes an essential approach for understanding all the different factors affecting the geomechanical behaviour in the field. In this paper, several modeling techniques adopted at the University of Wollongong are discussed. These techniques focused on isolating the different factors affecting the behaviour of soil-infilled discontinuities. Some of the resulting semi-empirical models that were developed to describe the effect of the soft-infill on the joint shear strength are also presented.