A 3D Fracture Network Model for the Undisturbed Rock Mass at the Songta Dam Site Based on Small Samples

Excerpt

Rock masses often contain discontinuities, which can be categorized as major discontinuities, such as faults and bedding plans that can be tens to hundreds of meters long, and minor discontinuities, such as joints and foliations with length varying from a few centimeters to tens of meters. Discontinuities endow a rock mass with discontinuous, inhomogeneous, and anisotropic features, and have an important influence on the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of the rock mass (Zhang et al. 2012; Li et al. 2014a, b). Thus, the characterization of rock fractures in terms of the orientation, spacing, size, aperture, etc. is a basic step for rock engineering design (Ivanova et al. 2014), and stochastic fracture network, also called discrete fracture network (DFN), models are deemed to be a suitable method for the characterization at present (Song and Lee 2001). …