Journal of the Korean Society of Mineral and Energy Resources Engineers ISSN:2288-0291(Print) 2288-2790(Online) 한국자원공학회지

Rock masses in general contain various types of discontinuities such as joints, bedding planes and faults and have different deformational behavior because of the structural anisotropy caused by these discontinuities. In this study the effect of joints on the deformation moduli of rock masses is studied. By developing a theoretical procedure and computational program which take into account both the dip and dip direction of the joints, the 3-dimensional anisotropic deformation moduli of the rock masses having multiple joints are estimated. The volume fraction, modulus contrast and the orientation of the discontinuities have great influence on the overall deformational properties and anisotropy of the rock masses. Comparisons are made between the direct analysis based on the finite element method and the theoretical analysis based on this study, using a hypothetical rock mass having 3 sets of joints. The overall deformation moduli obtained from both analyses have shown a good agreement within 5%.