• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.349-359
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• 2020

Quantification of the influence of the fracture of thick magmatic rock (TMR) on the behavior of its overlying strata is a prerequisite to the understanding of the deformation behavior of the earth's surface in deep mining. A three-dimensional numerical model of a special geological mining condition of overlying TMR was developed to investigate the overburden movement and fracture law, and compare the influence of the occurrence horizon of TMR. The research results show that the movement of overlying rock was greatly affected by the TMR. Before the fracture of TMR, the TMR had shielding and controlling effects on the overlying strata, the maximum vertical and horizontal displacement values of overlying strata were 0.68 m and 0.062 m. After the fracture, the vertical and horizontal displacements suddenly increased to 3.06 m and 0.105 m, with an increase of 350% and 69.4%, respectively, and the higher the occurrence of TMR, the smaller the settlement of the overlying strata, but the wider the settlement span, the smaller the corresponding deformation value of the basin edge (the more difficult the surface to crack). These results are of tremendous importance for the control of rock strata and the revealing of surface deformation mechanism under TMR mining conditions in mines.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.35-41
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• 2003

Rock mass characterization is an integral part of rock engineering design. Much of the information for rock mass characterization comes from field fracture mapping and data collecting. This paper describes two technologies that can be used to assist with the field mapping and data collecting activities associated with rock mass characterization: digital image processing and 3D laserscanning. The basis for these techniques is described, as well as the results of field case studies and an analysis of the error in estimating fracture orientation.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.16 no.4 s.50
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• pp.337-349
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• 2006

Seven hundred and fifty one fractures of the rhyolitic tuffaceous rock masses were mapped using 6 scanlines placed on rock slope exposures that were within 8.02 km of Busan-Ulsan highway. These data were analyzed to find the number of fracture sets that exist in the rock slopes and the probability distributions of orientation, spacing, trace length and fracture size in 3-D for each of the fracture sets. All the fracture set orientation distributions exhibit high variability. The Fisher distributions were found to be unsuitable to represent the statistical distribution of orientation for most of the fracture sets. The probability distributions, gamma, exponential and lognormal were found to be highly suitable to represent the distribution of spacing and semi-trace length of fracture sets. In obtain-ing these distributions, corrections were applied for sampling biases associated with spacing and trace length. The generated fracture system in 3-D was used to make predictions of fracture traces for each fracture set on 2-D win-dows. Developed stochastic 3-D fracture network for the rock mass was validated by comparing statistical proper-ties of the observed fracture traces on scanlines with the predicted fracture traces on the scanlines. This exercise fumed out to be successful.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.529-540
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• 2020

Water inrush is a major hazard for mining and excavation in deep coal seams or rock masses. It can be attributed to the coalescence of rock fractures in rock mass due to the interaction of fractures, hydraulic flow and stress field. One of the key technical challenges is to understand the course and mechanism of fluid flows in rock joint networks and fracture propagation and hence to take measures to prevent the formation of water inrush channels caused by possible rock fracturing. Several case observations of fluid flowing in rock joint networks and coupled fracture propagation in underground coal roadways are shown in this paper. A number of numerical simulations were done using the recently developed flow coupling function in FRACOD which simulates explicitly the fracture initiation and propagation process. The study has demonstrated that the shortest path between the inlet and outlet in joint networks will become a larger fluid flow channel and those fractures nearest to the water source and the working faces become the main channel of water inrush. The fractures deeper into the rib are mostly caused by shearing, and slipping fractures coalesce with the joint, which connects the water source and eventually forming a water inrush channel.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.481-495
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• 2015

Many hydropower stations in southwest China are located in regions of brittle rock mass with high geo-stresses. Under these conditions deep fractured zones often occur in the sidewalls of the underground caverns of a power station. The theory and methods of fracture and damage mechanics are therefore adopted to study the phenomena. First a flexibility matrix is developed to describe initial geometric imperfections of a jointed rock mass. This model takes into account the area and orientation of the fractured surfaces of multiple joint sets, as well as spacing and density of joints. Using the assumption of the equivalent strain principle, a damage constitutive model is established based on the brittle fracture criterion. In addition the theory of fracture mechanics is applied to analyze the occurrence of secondary cracks during a cavern excavation. The failure criterion, for rock bridge coalescence and the damage evolution equation, has been derived and a new sub-program integrated into the FLAC-3D software. The model has then been applied to the stability analysis of an underground cavern group of a hydropower station in Sichuan province, China. The results of this method are compared with those obtained by using a conventional elasto-plastic model and splitting depth calculated by the splitting failure criterion proposed in a previous study. The results are also compared with the depth of the relaxation and fracture zone in the surrounding rock measured by field monitoring. The distribution of the splitting zone obtained both by the proposed model and by the field monitoring measurements are consistent to the validity of the theory developed herein.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.121-132
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• 2004

Dynamic fracture processes of rock were analyzed to investigate the influence of the initiation error of the delay detonator in smooth blasting. The analysis models for the smooth blasting considered two blast geometries with three charge holes, and the simultaneous initiations without initiation error, with the initiation error of electronic delay detonator and with the initiation error of pyrotechnically delay detonator(DS detonator) were applied to the charge holes. In order to examine the effect of electronic and DS initiation detonator on the smooth blasting, the fracture process results were analyzed statistically.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.201-213
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• 1995

Understanding of the fracture processes in rock mass for hydrogeology necessitates such information as fracture mechanics including genesis, propagation, termination, and the relation of fracture distribution to geologic structures and fracture modelling, etc. A current status of information on fracture for groundwater flow in rock mass, however, is very paucity except on a few special fields throughout the world. The desired and reasonable approach method in the evaluation on the groundwater flow in fractured rock mass must be based on the thorough understanding of fracture processes and a simplified model representing fracture properties which would be met to natural conditions for the interpretation and prediction.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.03a
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• pp.643-648
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• 2010

Waterjet is a very useful technology for rock excavation because of low level noise and vibration during breaking rocks. To accurately predict the volume and shape excavated by the waterjet, it is important to understand waterjet fracture mechanisms. There have been various theoretical assumptions and approaches in the literature. In this study, waterjet mechanisms are classified into three standards: a mechanism scale, theoretical assumption for a target material, and jet phase. In addition, through a waterjet experimental study for weathered and intact granitic rocks, a fracture shape is observed and analyzed on comparison with the previous mechanisms. As a result, best waterjet mechanisms are selected to explain the fracture pattern of the granitic rocks.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.304-311
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• 2002

This study reports the influence of vocid geometry on fracture closure and permeability from numerical experiments. As the aperture distributions of rock fractures are characterized by statistical methods, synthetic fractures have successfully been simulated in this way. Based on the generated fracture models, models for fracture closure and flow calculation have been developed. A fracture closure model has been developed by considering the asperity compression and half-space deformation, and flow calculations have been performed using a finite difference method adopting a local cubic law. The results of numerical experiments have shown that the increase in the aperture spatial correlation leads the fracture closure and the decrease in fracture permeability to increase. Also, it has been indicated that there is an implicit relation between fracture normal stiffness and permeability. The importance of this study is to enhance the understanding the hydro-mechanical behavior of fractured rock massed due to engineering projects.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.259-268
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• 2020

The synthetic rock mass (SRM) were used to investigate the influence of specimen size on the mechanical properties of jointed rock mass. The SRM were established based on parallel bond model (PBM) and smooth joint model (SJM) and the scaled rock specimens were sampled in two SRMs considering three sampling locations. The research results show that the smaller the initial fracture density is, the greater the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), elastic modulus (E) is when compared with the same sampling location. The mechanical properties of rock specimens obtained by different sampling methods in different SRMs have different scale effects. The strength of rock specimens with more new cracks is not necessarily less than that of rock specimens with fewer new cracks and the failure of rock is caused by the formation of macro-fracture surface.