Elliptical Hertz-Based General Closure Model for Rock Joints

Excerpt

The hydro-mechanical behavior of rock masses is mainly dominated by the behavior of the contained rock joints (Cook 1992; Grasselli and Egger 2003; Bahaaddini et al. 2014). It is well-recognized that studying the closure behavior of a rock joint at small scale in laboratory is a prerequisite to comprehensively understand the in situ hydro-mechanical behavior of a jointed rock mass (Bandis et al. 1983). The aperture distribution of rock joints in rock masses, which usually behaves as the major pathways of underground water or air, is directly affected by its closure behavior under the action of compressive loading. An understanding of how flow evolves in such aperture is significant to many engineering applications (Hopkins 2000), such as geothermal heat extraction, geologic disposal of high-level nuclear wastes, and oil/gas exploration, and is also relevant in the prediction of natural phenomena including earthquakes (Cook 1992; Hopkins 2000; Nemoto et al. 2009; Zhu et al. 2019; Zou et al. 2019). In addition, wave propagation in rock masses is also closely related to the rock-joint closure, and studying the interaction of stress wave and rock joints is of significance to evaluate the stability of rock engineering structures under dynamic loading, such as tunnels, foundations, and rock slopes (Li et al. 2014a, b, 2017; Chen et al. 2015; Han et al. 2020). …