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- Title
Elasto-plastic and post-yield weakening jointed rockmass response in a comparison of equivalent-continuum and explicit structural models.
- Authors
Fischer, Caitlin P.; Diederichs, Mark S.
- Abstract
The strength and stiffness of a composite rockmass (intact material, defects, joints, bedding, etc.) are primary inputs for the engineering analysis of rock slopes and underground excavations. The Geological Strength Index (GSI) has served rock engineering for three decades as a rockmass assessment system based on the blockiness of the rockmass and discontinuity condition. GSI is used to factor the Hoek–Brown strength envelope for intact rock to represent jointed rockmasses in conventional equivalent-continuum numerical modelling. Modern numerical tools can represent networks of discrete (explicit) structure with assigned discontinuity properties. This provides an opportunity to compare explicit structural modelling with the conventional implicit equivalent-continuum approach. In this paper, explicit structural models are developed using elasto-plastic (constant-strength) constitutive models for intact rock and realistic parametric ranges for explicit structure properties. Explicit model results are compared to equivalent-continuum results, validating the classical implicit approach while also identifying key limitations. Explicit models with post-yield weakening of the intact and structural elements are then developed and compared to post-yield weakening implicit models that use post-yield dilation and empirical relationships between peak and residual GSI. The results provide guidance for practical modelling in strain-weakening rockmasses, including recommendations for post-yield dilation in the traditional implicit approach.
- Subjects
STRUCTURAL models; ROCK slopes; ROCK analysis; ENGINEERING mathematics; EMPIRICAL research
- Publication
Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 2024, Vol 61, Issue 4, p611
- ISSN
0008-3674
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1139/cgj-2022-0190