• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.349-356
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• 2020

Rock brittleness, which is closely related to the failure modes, plays a significant role in the design and construction of many rock engineering applications. However, the brittle-ductile failure transition is mostly ignored by the current statistical damage constitutive model, which may misestimate the failure strength and failure behaviours of intact rock. In this study, a new statistical damage model considering rock brittleness is proposed for brittle to ductile behaviour of rocks using brittleness index (BI). Firstly, the statistical constitutive damage model is reviewed and a new statistical damage model considering failure mode transition is developed by introducing rock brittleness parameter-BI. Then the corresponding damage distribution parameters, shape parameter m and scale parameter F₀, are expressed in terms of BI. The shape parameter m has a positive relationship with BI while the scale parameter F₀ depends on both BI and ε_e. Finally, the robustness and correctness of the proposed damage model is validated using a set of experimental data with various confining pressure.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.139-151
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• 2014

Mudstone is a very common rock that, when in contact with water, can exhibit considerable volume change and breakdown. This behavior of mudstone is frequently encountered in geotechnical engineering and has a considerable influence on infrastructure stability. This is particularly important in the present work, which focuses on mitigating the harmful properties of mudstone. The samples studied are of Permian Age mudstone from Shandong Province, China. Modification tests using organic silicone additive material were carried out. The mechanisms of physical properties modification of mudstone were comparatively studied using corresponding test methods, and the modification mechanism of organic silicone additive material acting on mudstone was analyzed. The following conclusions were drawn. The surface texture and characters of mudstone changed dramatically, surface character turns from hydrophilic to hydrophobic after organic silicone additive material modification. The changes in the surface character indicate a reduction in the water sensitivity of mudstone. After modification, the shape of porosity and fracture of mudstone changed unremarkable, and the total and free expansion ratios decreased obviously, whereas the strength increased markedly.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.215-224
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• 2019

Excavation of long tunnels by shielded TBMs is a safe, fast, and efficient method of tunneling that mitigates many risks related to ground conditions. However, long-distance tunneling in great depth through adverse geological conditions brings about limitations in the application of TBMs. Among various harsh geological conditions, squeezing ground as a consequence of tunnel wall and face convergence could lead to cluttered blocking, shield jamming and in some cases failure in the support system. These issues or a combination of them could seriously hinder the performance of TBMs. The technique of excavation has a strong influence on the tunnel response when it is excavated under squeezing conditions. The Golab water conveyance tunnel was excavated by a double-shield TBM. This tunnel passes mainly through metamorphic weak rocks with up to 650 m overburden. These metamorphic rocks (Shales, Slates, Phyllites and Schists) together with some fault zones are incapable of sustaining high tangential stresses. Prediction of the convergence, estimation of the creeping effects and presenting strategies to overcome the squeezing ground are regarded as challenging tasks for the tunneling engineer. In this paper, the squeezing potential of the rock mass is investigated in specific regions by dint of numerical and analytical methods. Subsequently, several operational solutions which were conducted to counteract the challenges are explained in detail.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.359-370
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• 2021

Joint roughness is combination of primary and secondary roughness. Ordinarily primary roughness is a geostatistical part of a joint surface that has a periodic nature but secondary roughness or unevenness is a statistical part of that which have a random nature. Using roughness generating algorithms is a useful method for evaluation of joint roughness. In this paper after determining geostatistical parameters of the joint profile, were presented two roughness generating algorithms using Mount-Carlo method for evaluation of primary (GJRGAP) and secondary (GJRGAS) roughness. These based on geostatistical parameters (range and sill) and statistical parameters (standard deviation of asperities height, SDH, and standard deviation of asperities angle, SDA) for generation two-dimensional joint roughness profiles. In this study different geostatistical regions were defined depending on the range and SDH. As SDH increases, the height of the generated asperities increases and asperities become sharper and at a specific range (a specific curve) relation between SDH and SDA is linear. As the range in GJRGAP becomes larger (the base of the asperities) the shape of asperities becomes flatter. The results illustrate that joint profiles have larger SDA with increase of SDH and decrease of range. Consequencely increase of SDA leads to joint roughness parameters such Z2, Z3 and RP increases. The results showed that secondary roughness or unevenness has a great influence on roughness values. In general, it can be concluded that the shape and size of asperities are appropriate parameters to approach the field scale from the laboratory scale.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.313-324
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• 2022

Rock properties are important in the design of mines and civil engineering excavations to prevent the imminent failure of slopes and collapse of underground excavations. However, the time, cost, and expertise required to perform experiments to determine those properties are high. Therefore, empirical models have been developed for estimating the mechanical properties of rock that are difficult to determine experimentally from properties that are less difficult to measure. However, the inherent variability in rock properties makes the accurate performance of the empirical models unrealistic and therefore necessitate the use of soft computing models. In this study, Gaussian process regression (GPR), artificial neural network (ANN) and response surface method (RSM) have been proposed to predict the static and dynamic rock properties from the P-wave and rock density. The outcome of the study showed that GPR produced more accurate results than the ANN and RSM models. GPR gave the correlation coefficient of above 99% for all the three properties predicted and RMSE of less than 5. The detailed sensitivity analysis is also conducted using the RSM and the P-wave velocity is found to be the most influencing parameter in the rock mechanical properties predictions. The proposed models can give reasonable predictions of important mechanical properties of sedimentary rock.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.615-626
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• 2021

The main objective of this study is to present a fast and reliable approach to predict the swelling potential of clay-bearing rocks. Investigations showed that there is a good correlation between the swelling potential of a rock and its desire to absorb water due to its clay content which could be measured using the "Contact Angle" test as one of the most common ways to determine the wettability. In this test, the angle between a water drop and the flat rock surface on which it rests is measured. The present method is very fast and returns repeatable results and requires minimal sample preparation. Only having a saw-cut surface of a sample with any shape is all one needs to perform this test. The logic behind this approach is that the swelling potential of a rock is a function of its mineral content and molecular structure, which are not only distributed in the bulk of the sample but also reflected on its surface. Therefore, to evaluate swelling behavior, it is not necessary to wait for a sample to get wet all the way to its "internal structure" (which, due to the low permeability of clay-bearing rocks, is very slow and time-consuming). Instead, one can have a good sense of swelling potential by studying its surface. Parametric studies on the effect of moisture content, porosity, and surface roughness on the contact angle measurements showed that using a saw-cut oven-dried sample is a convenient way to evaluate the swelling potential by this method.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.551-564
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• 2022

Fragmenting the rock mass is considered as the most important work in open-pit mines. Ground vibration is the most hazardous issue of blasting which can cause critical damage to the surrounding structures. This paper focuses on developing an explicit model to predict the ground vibration through an multi objective evolutionary polynomial regression (MOGA-EPR). To this end, a database including 79 sets of data related to a quarry site in Malaysia were used. In addition, a gene expression programming (GEP) model and several empirical equations were employed to predict ground vibration, and their performances were then compared with the MOGA-EPR model using the mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), mean (𝜇), standard deviation of the mean (𝜎), coefficient of determination (R²) and a20-index. Comparing the results, it was found that the MOGA-EPR model predicted the ground vibration more precisely than the GEP model and the empirical equations, where the MOGA-EPR scored lower MAE and RMSE, 𝜇 and 𝜎 closer to the optimum value, and higher R² and a20-index. Accordingly, the proposed MOGA-EPR model can be introduced as a useful method to predict ground vibration and has the capacity to be generalized to predict other blasting effects.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.233-244
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• 2023

With the increasing amount of resources required by the society development, mining operations go deeper, which raises the requirements of studying the effects of temperature on the physical and mechanical properties of coal and adjacent rock. For now, these effects are yet to be fully revealed. In this paper, a mechanical-electromagnetic radiation (EMR) test system was established to understand the mechanical deterioration characteristics of coal by the effect of thermal treatment and its deformation and fracture characteristics under thermo-mechanical coupling conditions. The mechanical properties of high-temperature-treated coal were analyzed and recorded, based on which, reasons of coal mechanical deterioration as well as the damage parameters were obtained. Changes of the EMR time series under unconstrained conditions were further analyzed before characteristics of EMR signals under different damage conditions were obtained. The evolution process of thermal damage and deformation of coal was then analyzed through the frequency spectrum of EMR. In the end, based on the time-frequency variation characteristics of EMR, a method of determining combustion zones within the underground gasification area and combustion zones' stability level was proposed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.353-367
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• 2023

The construction of a protective embankment is a suitable strategy to stop and control high-energy rock blocks' impacts during the rockfall phenomenon. In this paper, based on the discrete element numerical method, by modeling an existing embankment reinforced with geogrid, its stability status under the impact of a rock block with two types of low and high kinetic energy, namely 2402 and 4180 kJ, respectively, has been investigated. The modeling results show that the use of geogrid has caused the displacement in the front and back of the embankment to decrease by more than 30%. In this case, the reinforced embankment has stopped the rock block earlier. The displacements obtained from the DEM modeling are compared with the displacements measured from an actual practical experiment to evaluate the results' validity. Comparison between the results shows that the displacement values are close together, while the maximum percentage error in previous studies by an analytical method and the finite element method was 76.4% and 36.6%, respectively. Therefore, the obtained results indicate the discrete numerical method's high ability compared to other numerical and analytical methods to simulate and design the geogrid-reinforced soil embankment under natural disasters such as rockfall with a minor error.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.435-449
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• 2022

In this paper, unreinforced and geogrid-reinforced soil foundations were modeled by discrete element method and this performed under surface strip footing loads. The effects of horizontal position of geogrid, vertical position, thickness, number, confining pressure have been investigated on the footing settlement and propagation of tensile force along the geogrids. Also, interaction between rectangular tunnel and strip footing with and without presence of geogrid layer has been analyzed. Experimental results of the literature were used to validation of relationships between the numerically achieved footing pressure-settlement for foundations of reinforced and unreinforced soil. Models and micro input parameters which used in the numerical modelling of reinforced and unreinforced soil tunnel were similar to parameters which were used in soil foundations. Model dimension was 1000 mm* 600 mm. Normal and shear stiffness of soils were 5*10⁵ and 2.5 *10⁵ N/m, respectively. Normal and shear stiffness of geogrid were 1*10⁹ and 1*10⁹ N/m, respectively. Loading rate was 0.001 mm/sec. Micro input parameters used in numerical simulation gain by try and error. In addition of the quantitative tensile force propagation along the geogrids, the footing settlements were visualized. Due to collaboration of three layers of geogrid reinforcements the bearing capacity of the reinforced soil tunnel was greatly improved. In such practical reinforced soil formations, the qualitative displacement propagations of soil particles in the soil tunnel and the quantitative vertical displacement propagations along the soil layers/geogrids represented the geogrid reinforcing impacts too.