Particle Discontinuous Deformation Analysis of Static and Dynamic Crack Propagation in Brittle Material

Crack propagation in brittle material is not only crucial for structural safety evaluation,but also has a wideranging impact on material design,damage assessment,resource extraction,and scientific research.A thorough investigation into the behavior of crack propagation contributes to a better understanding and control of the properties of brittle materials,thereby enhancing the reliability and safety of both materials and structures.As an implicit discrete elementmethod,the Discontinuous Deformation Analysis(DDA)has gained significant attention for its developments and applications in recent years.Among these developments,the particle DDA equipped with the bonded particle model is a powerful tool for predicting the whole process of material from continuity to failure.The primary objective of this research is to develop and utilize the particle DDAtomodel and understand the complex behavior of cracks in brittle materials under both static and dynamic loadings.The particle DDA is applied to several classical crack propagation problems,including the crack branching,compact tensile test,Kalthoff impact experiment,and tensile test of a rectangular plate with a hole.The evolutions of cracks under various stress or geometrical conditions are carefully investigated.The simulated results are compared with the experiments and other numerical results.It is found that the crack propagation patterns,including crack branching and the formation of secondary cracks,can be well reproduced.The results show that the particle DDA is a qualified method for crack propagation problems,providing valuable insights into the fracture mechanism of brittle materials.

On the calibration and verification of Voronoi-based discontinuous deformation analysis for modeling rock fracture

Since its introduction,discontinuous deformation analysis(DDA)has been widely used in different areas of rock mechanics.By dividing large blocks into subblocks and introducing artificial joints,DDA can be applied to rock fracture simulation.However,parameter calibration,a fundamental issue in discontinuum methods,has not received enough attention in DDA.In this study,the parameter calibration of DDA for intact rock is carefully studied.To this end,a subblock DDA with Voronoi tessellation is presented first.Then,a modified contact constitutive law is introduced,in which the tensile and shear meso-strengths are modified to be independent of the bond lengths.This improvement can prevent the unjustified preferential failure of short edges.A method for imposing confining pressure is also introduced.Thereafter,sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the influence of the calculated parameters and meso-parameters on the mechanical properties of modeled rock.Based on the sensitivity analysis,a unified calibration procedure is suggested for both cases with and without confining pressure.Finally,the calibration procedure is applied to two examples,including a biaxial compression test.The results show that the proposed Voronoi-based DDA can simulate rock fracture with and without confining pressure very well after careful parameter calibration.

Dynamic process analysis of the Niumiangou landslide triggered by the Wenchuan earthquake using the finite difference method and a modified discontinuous deformation analysis

The Niumiangou landslide was the largest landslide triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake,which was significantly affected by the amplification effect of seismic acceleration.The ringshear experiments indicated that the materials in the source area of the Niumiangou landslide were subjected to friction degradation under a big shear displacement,which may result in rapid movement of the landslide.In order to better understand the landslide movement and study the effect of the friction degradation on movement mechanisms,the dynamic process of Niumiangou landslide was simulated with a new numerical method,which combines the finite difference method(FDM)and the discontinuous deformation analysis(DDA).First,the FDM was used to study the initiation time,amplification effect and velocity of the landslide.Afterwards,these initiation velocities were applied to the blocks in the DDA model by corresponding coordination in the FDM model.A displacementdependent friction model of the sliding surface was incorporated into DDA code to further understand the kinetic behavior of the landslide.The results show that the displacement-dependent friction strongly decreases the friction coefficient of sliding surface under a big displacement,which can obviously promote the run-out and velocity of landslide.The model output well matches the topographic map formed by the landslide.This implies that the proposed model can be applied to the simulation of earthquake-induced landslides with amplification effect,and the friction degradation model is important to clarify the movement mechanism of high-speed and long-distance landslides.

A continuous/discontinuous deformation analysis(CDDA)method based on deformable blocks for fracture modeling

In the framework of finite element meshes,a novel continuous/discontinuous deformation analysis(CDDA)method is proposed in this paper for modeling of crack problems.In the present CDDA,simple polynomial interpolations are defined at the deformable block elements,and a link element is employed to connect the adjacent block elements.The CDDA is particularly suitable for modeling the fracture propagation because the switch from continuous deformation analysis to discontinuous deformation analysis is natural and convenient without additional procedures.The SIFs(stress intensity factors)for various types of cracks,such as kinked cracks or curved cracks,can be easily computed in the CDDA by using the virtual crack extension technique(VCET).Both the formulation and implementation of the VCET in CDDA are simple and straightforward.Numerical examples indicate that the present CDDA can obtain high accuracy in SIF results with simple polynomial interpolations and insensitive to mesh sizes,and can automatically simulate the crack propagation without degrading accuracy.

Simulation of blast induced crater in jointed rock mass by discontinuous deformation analysis method

Rock blasting is a dynamic process accom panied with the propagations of shock waves and the dispersion of the explosion gas.This paper adopts the discontinuous deformation analysis(DDA)method to simulate the rock blasting process.A dynamic parameter adjustment and the non-reflecting boundary condition are implemented in the DDA method.The sub-block DDA method to simulate fracture problems is used.The blasting process in jointed rock mass is simulated by application of the explosion gas pressure on the expanding borehole walls and induced connected fracture surfaces around the boreholes.The blast craters with different overburdens are derived.The whole process including the explosion gas dispersion,borehole expansion,rock mass failure and cast,and the formation of the final blasting piles in rock blasting are well reproduced numerically.Parametric study for different overburdens is carried out,and the results are analyzed and discussed.

Contact-Stress-Based Stress Recovery Methods for Discontinuous Deformation Analysis

Discontinuous deformation analysis(DDA)has been widely applied for the simulation of block systems that have many discontinuous surfaces.The penalty method is utilized to ensure that there are no penetrations between blocks.A linear polynomial function for displacement leads to a constant stress for a block,which cannot precisely describe the stress field within the block.Therefore,a high-order polynomial displacement function and a flue mesh are always used to improve the precision of the stress field.However,these means are not practical for simulating block systems that have many contacts.In this paper,the contact-stress-based stress recovery methods are proposed for DDA.High-precision solutions for the contact stresses on the boundaries of the blocks are utilized.The first-order Gaussian point of a block is the block's centroid,where the constant stress obtained via DDA is of higher precision.The high-precision solutions for the stresses are utilized in the least squares method to recover a single block's inner stress field.The proposed methods enhance the resolution of the stress field inside a single block without increasing the computational effort in the main iterative process for displacement in DDA.Numerical examples are simulated using both the finite element method(FEM)with a fine mesh and the proposed DDA program.The recovered DDA results can accurately describe the distribution of the stresses in a single block and,in some areas,have the same precision as the FEM results.Moreover,the precision of the proposed methods improves as the gradient of the contact stress on the boundary decreases.

Parallelization of spherical discontinuous deformation analysis(SDDA) for geotechnical problems based on cloud computing environment

The computational efficiency of the traditional serial spherical discontinuous deformation analysis(SDDA) program has limited its application in geotechnical engineering problems that need a large number of spheres. The cloud computing technology is used to parallel the SDDA program for the first time in this research. The most computationally intensive portions of the SDDA program, i.e., contact detection and matrix solution, are parallelized with proposed algorithms. The accuracy of the cloud-based parallel SDDA program(CB-PSDDA) is verified first. Further efficiency tests show that significant speedup can be obtained with an 8-server configuration and the computing scale can be up to several tens of thousands of particles. The cloud-based parallelized SDDA program increases its potential in applications of deformation and failure analysis of large-scale and realistic geotechnical engineering problems.

Practical studies on rockfall simulation by DDA

In this paper,simulations of real rockfall by discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) are conducted.In the simulations,the energy losses of rockfall are categorized into three types,i.e.the loss by friction,the loss by collision,and the loss by vegetation.Modeling of the energy loss using absolute parameters is conducted by the DDA method.Moreover,in order to verify the applicability and validity of the proposed DDA,field tests on rockfall and corresponding simulations of rockfall tests by DDA are performed.The simulated results of rockfall velocity and rockfall jumping height agree well with those obtained from the field tests.Therefore,the new technique properly considers the energy-absorption ability of slope based on vegetation condition and shape of the rockfall,and provides a new method for the assessment and preventive design of rockfall.

Support characteristics of flexible negative Poisson’s ratio anchor cable response to blasting impacts

With the gradual decrease and exhaustion of shallow mineral resources,underground mining has progressed to greater depths.Here,the geological environment is significantly more complex and nonlinear,and large deformations of rock masses have great potential to occur.Many geotechnical engineering disasters have occurred even while using Poisson’s ratio(PR)anchor cable supports.To efficiently deal with these issues,a new support material called negative Poisson’s ratio(NPR)anchor cable is proposed;this material can withstand large deformations and provide high constant resistance.In this study,the support characteristics of macro-NPR anchor cable under blasting impact were mainly studied.The support effects of PR anchor cable and macro-NPR anchor cable were compared and analyzed with the help of field experiments and numerical simulations.The results indicate that field experiments and discontinuous deformation analysis accurately reflect the failure state of the selected roadway,as well as the tension and deformation of the anchor cables.The road-way supported by PR anchor cables cannot resist rock bursts under ordinary circumstances.However,the NPR anchor cable-supported roadway resisted a rock burst caused by the impact equivalent to a mine earthquake magnitude above 3;it meets the requirements of roadway stability.