Rock as a mass generally exhibits discontinuities, commonly witnessed in rock slopes and underground structures like tunnels, rock pillars etc. When these discontinuities experiences loading, a new crack emerges from them which later propagates to a macro scale level of failure. The failure pattern is often influenced by the nature of discontinuity, geometry and loading conditions. The study of crack growth in rocks, namely its initiation and propagation, plays an important role in defining the true strength of rock and corresponding failure patterns. Many researchers have considered the length of the discontinuity to be fully persistent on rock or rock-like specimens by both experimental and numerical methods. However, only during recent decades, there has been a substantial growth in research interest with non-persistent discontinuities where the crack growth and its propagation phenomenon were found to be much more complex than persistent ones. The non-persistence fractures surface is generally considered to be open and closed. Compared to open flaws, there is a difference in crack growth behaviour in closed or narrow flaws due to the effect of surface closure between them. The present paper reviews the literature that has contributed towards studying the crack growth behaviour and its failure characteristics on both open and narrow flaws subjected to uniaxial and biaxial compression loading conditions.

The present paper examines the natural frequency responses of the bi-directional (n_x-n_y, n_y-n_z and n_z-n_x) and multidirectional (n_x-n_y-n_z) functionally graded (FG) plate and curved structures with and without porosity. The even and uneven kind of porosity pattern are considered to observe the influence of porosity type and porosity index. The numerical findings have been obtained using a higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) based isometric finite element (FE) approach generated in a MATLAB platform. According to the convergence and validation investigation, the proposed HSDT based FE model is adequate to predict free vibrational responses of multidirectional porous FG plates and curved structures. Further a parametric analysis is carried out by taking various design parameters into account. The free vibrational behavior of bidirectional (2D) and multidirectional (3D) perfect-imperfect FGM structure is examined against various power law index, support conditions, aspect, and thickness ratio, and for the curvature of curved structures. The results indicate that the maximum non-dimensional fundamental frequency (NFF) value is observed in perfect FGM plates and curved structures compared to porous FGM plates and curved structures and it is maximum for FGM plates and curved structures with uneven kind of porosity than even porosity.

To analyze the consolidation with horizontal sand drains, the plane strain consolidation model under multi-ramp loading is established, and its corresponding analytical solution is derived by using the separation of variables method. The proposed solution is verified by the field measurement data and finite element results. Then, the effects of the loading mode and stress distribution on consolidation and dissipation of pore pressure are investigated. At the same time, the influence of hydraulic conductivity and thickness of sand blankets on soil consolidation are also analyzed. The results show that the loading mode has a significant effect on both the soil consolidation rate and generation-dissipation process of pore water pressure. In contrast, the influence of stress distribution on pore pressure dissipation is obvious, while its influence on soil consolidation rate is negligible. To guarantee the fully drained condition of the sand blanket, the ratio of hydraulic conductivity of the sand blanket to that of clay layer k_d/k_v should range from 1.0×10⁴ to 1.0×10⁶ with soil width varying from 100 m to 1000 m. A larger soil width correspondingly needs a greater value of kd/kv to make sure that the pore water can flow through the sand blanket smoothly with little resistance. When the soil width is relatively small (e.g., less than 100 m), the effect of thickness of the sand blanket on soil consolidation is insignificant. And its influence appears obvious gradually with the increase of the soil width.

Long-span suspension bridges have tunnel anchor systems to maintain stable cables. More investigations are required to determine how closely tunnel excavation beneath the tunnel anchor impacts the stability of the tunnel anchor. In order to investigate the impact of the adjacent tunnel's excavation on the stability of the tunnel anchor, a large-span suspension bridge tunnel anchor is utilised as an example in a three-dimensional numerical simulation approach. In order to explore the deformation control mechanism, orthogonal tests are employed to pinpoint the major impacting elements. The construction of an advanced pipe shed, strengthening the primary support. Moreover, according to the findings the grouting reinforcement of the surrounding rock, have a significant control effect on the settlement of the tunnel vault and plug body. However, reducing the lag distance of the secondary lining does not have such big influence. The greatest way to control tunnel vault settling is to use the grout reinforcement, which increases the bearing capacity and strength of the surrounding rock. This greatly minimizes the size of the tunnel excavation disturbance area. Advanced pipe shed can not only increase the surrounding rock's bearing capacity at the pipe shed, but can also prevent the tunnel vault from connecting with the disturbance area at the bottom of the anchorage tunnel, reduce the range of shear failure area outside the anchorage tunnel, and have the best impact on the plug body's settlement control.

Reasonable estimates of tunnel lining dislocations in the operation stage, especially under longitudinal differential settlement, are important for the design of waterproof gaskets. In this paper, a modified shell-joint model is proposed to calculate shield tunnel dislocations under longitudinal differential settlement, with the ability to consider the nonlinear shear stiffness of the joint. In the case of shell elements in the model, an elastoplastic damage constitutive model was adopted to describe the nonlinear stress-strain relationship of concrete. After verifying its applicability and correctness against a full-scale tunnel test and a joint shear test, the proposed model was used to analyze the dislocation behaviors of a shield tunnel in Shanghai Metro Line 2 under longitudinal differential settlement. Based on the results, when the tunnel structure is solely subjected to water-earth load, circumferential and longitudinal joint dislocations are all less than 0.1 mm. When the tunnel suffers longitudinal differential settlement and the curvature radius of the differential settlement is less than 300 m, although maximum longitudinal joint dislocation is still less than 0.1 mm, the maximum circumferential joint dislocation is approximately 10.3 mm, which leads to leakage and damage of the tunnel structure. However, with concavo-convex tenons applied to circumferential joints, the maximum dislocation value reduces to 4.5 mm.

An effective tool for researching actual problems in geotechnical and mining engineering is to conduct physical modeling tests using similar materials. A reliable geometric scaled model test requires selecting similar materials and conducting tests to determine physical properties such as the mixing ratio of the mixed materials. In this paper, a method is proposed to determine similar materials that can reproduce target properties using a polynomial model based on experimental results on modeling materials using a gypsum-sand mixture (GSM) to simulate rocks. To that end, a database is prepared using the unconfined compressive strength, elastic modulus, and density of 459 GSM samples as output parameters and the weight ratio of the mixing materials as input parameters. Further, a model that can predict the physical properties of the GSM using this database and a polynomial approach is proposed. The performance of the developed method is evaluated by comparing the predicted and observed values; the results demonstrate that the proposed polynomial model can predict the physical properties of the GSM with high accuracy. Sensitivity analysis results indicated that the gypsum-water ratio significantly affects the prediction of the physical properties of the GSM. The proposed polynomial model is used as a powerful tool to simplify the process of determining similar materials for rocks and conduct highly reliable experiments in a physical modeling test.

The failures of tailing dams have caused irreparable damage to human lives, assets and environment and this has ultimately resulted in great economic, social and environmental challenges worldwide. Due to this, investigation into mechanical behaviour of tailings has received some attention. However, the knowledge and understanding of mechanics of behaviour in iron tailings is still limited. This study investigates the mechanics of iron tailings from Nigeria considering grading, effects of fabric resulting from different sample preparations and the possibility of non-convergent behaviour. This was achieved by conducting series of one-dimensional compression tests in conjunction with index, microstructural, chemical and mineralogical tests. The materials are predominantly poorly graded, non-clayey and non-plastic. The tailings are characterised by angular particles with no obvious particle aggregations and dominated by silicon, iron, aluminium, haematite and quartz. The compression paths do not converge and unique normal compression lines are not found and this is an important feature of the transitional mode of behaviour. The behaviour of these iron tailings therefore depends on initial specific volume. The preparation methods also have effect on the compression paths of the samples. The gradings of the samples have an influence on the degree of transitional behaviour but the preparation methods do affect the degree of convergence. The transitional mode of behaviour in these iron tailings investigated is very strong.

Advanced nonlinear effective stress constitutive models are started to be frequently used in one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) site response analysis for assessment of porewater generation and liquefaction potential in soft soil deposits. The emphasis of this research is on the assessment of the implementation of this category of models at the element stage. Initially, the performance of a coupled porewater pressure (PWP) and constitutive models were evaluated employing a catalogue of 40 unidirectional cyclic simple shear tests with a variety of relative densities between 35% and 80% and effective vertical stresses between 40 and 80 kPa. The authors evaluated three coupled constitutive models (PDMY02, PM4SAND and PDMY03) using cyclic direct simple shear tests and for decide input parameters used in the model, procedures are recommended. The ability of the coupled model to capture dilation as strength is valuable because the studied models reasonably capture the cyclic performance noted in the experiments and should be utilized to conduct effective stress-based 1D and 2D site response analysis. Sandy soils may become softer and liquefy during earthquakes as a result of pore-water pressure (PWP) development, which may have an impact on seismic design and site response. The tested constitutive models are mathematically coupled with a cyclic strain-based PWP generation model and can capture small-strain stiffness and large-strain shear strength. Results show that there are minor discrepancies between measured and computed excess PWP ratios, indicating that the tested constitutive models provide reasonable estimations of PWP increase during cyclic shear (r_u) and the banana shape is reproduced in a proper way indicating that dilation and shear- strain behavior is well captured by the models.