Evolution Process of Natural Rock Joint Roughness during Direct Shear Tests
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17, Issue 5
Abstract
Surface roughness is one of the most important parameters that have significant influence on the mechanical and hydraulic characteristics of rock joints. To investigate the evolution of surface roughness under normal and shear loads, direct shear tests and numerical modeling based on the discrete-element method (DEM) were performed; bright area percentage (BAP), which places emphasis on the contact areas, was used as an index to describe the roughness. The results demonstrate that the surface roughness of rock joints decreased gradually as the shear displacement increased, and then roughness experienced a significant reduction in the residual stage and remained constant. Furthermore, the evolution of surface roughness was found to depend on the normal stress and shearing direction. Reduction in the degree of joint roughness with high normal loads was lighter than that with lower normal loads, and roughness varied with shear directions. The numerical simulation method proposed in this study has the potential to track the changes in roughness during the shearing process, and a good match was achieved with the experimental results.
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Acknowledgments
The work was sponsored by the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program, No. 2011CB7,1,0600); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 4,1,230,637); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan; No. CUGL15,0822); and the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (No. 2015M5,70672).
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17 • Issue 5 • May 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 29, 2015
Accepted: Mar 16, 2016
Published online: Aug 16, 2016
Discussion open until: Jan 16, 2017
Published in print: May 1, 2017
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