A study on the hydro-mechanical behavior of jointed rock masses around underground excavation by using a discrete joint network modeling

Discrete joint network approach has widely been used to investigate the hydraulic behavior of jointed rock masses. In general, joints will undergo deformation due to stress redistribution induced by construction of underground openings, hence joint aperture is often assumed to have a probability distribution rather than to be a constant value. In real situations, however, it is more reasonable to take into account the effect of stress change on aperture values by calculating joint deformation. In this report, a mechanical process has been developed to determine the joint opening or closure based on a statistically generated joint network model. By performing numerical analyses, some significant results on the hydro-mechanical behavior of jointed rock masses have been summarized.