A comparative study for determining rock joint normal stiffness with destructive uniaxial compression and nondestructive ultrasonic wave testing

Rock joints are one of the vital discontinuities in a natural rock mass.How to accurately and conveniently determine joint normal stiffness is therefore significant in rock mechanics.Here,first,seven existing methods for determining joint normal stiffness were introduced and reviewed,among which MethodⅠ(the indirect measurement method),MethodⅡ(the direct determination method),MethodⅢ(the across-joint strain gauge measurement method)and MethodⅣ(the deformation measuring ring method)are via destructive uniaxial compression testing,while MethodⅤ(the best fitting method),MethodⅥ(the rapid evaluation method)and MethodⅦ(the effective modulus method)are through wave propagation principles and nondestructive ultrasonic testing.Subsequently,laboratory tests of intact and jointed sandstone specimens were conducted following the testing requirements and pro-cedures of those seven methods.A comparison among those methods was then performed.The results show that Method I,i.e.the benchmark method,is reliable and stable.MethodⅡhas a conceptual drawback,and its accuracy is acceptable at only very low stress levels.Relative errors in the results from MethodⅢare very large.With MethodⅣ,the testing results are sufficiently accurate despite the strict testing environment and complicated testing procedures.The results from MethodⅤare greatly unstable and significantly dependent on the natural frequency of the transducers.The joint normal stiffness determined with MethodⅥis stable and accurate,although data processing is complex.MethodⅦcould be adopted to determine the joint normal stiffness corresponding to the rock elastic deformation phase only.Consequently,it is suggested that MethodsⅠ,ⅣandⅥshould be adopted for the mea-surement of joint normal stiffness.The findings could be helpful in selecting an appropriate method to determine joint normal stiffness and,hence,to better solve discontinuous rock mass problems.

A new multiple-factor clustering method considering both box fractal dimension and orientation of joints

The paper proposes a new multiple-factor clustering method(NMFCM)with consideration of both box fractal dimension(BFD)and orientation of joints.This method assumes that the BFDs of different clusters were uneven,and clustering was performed by redistributing the joints near the boundaries of clusters on a polar map to maximize an index for estimating the difference of the BFD(DBFD).Three main aspects were studied to develop the NMFCM.First,procedures of the NMFCM and reasonableness of assumptions were illustrated.Second,main factors affecting the NMFCM were investigated by numerical simulations with disk joint models.Finally,two different sections of a rock slope were studied to verify the practicability of the NMFCM.The results demonstrated that:(1)The NMFCM was practical and could effectively alleviate the problem of hard boundary during clustering;(2)The DBFD tended to increase after the improvement of clustering accuracy;(3)The improvement degree of the NMFCM clustering accuracy was mainly influenced by three parameters,namely,the number of clusters,number of redistributed joints,and total number of joints;and(4)The accuracy rate of clustering could be effectively improved by the NMFCM.