Experimental and mathematical modeling for fracture of rock joint with regular asperities

This paper is aimed at developing a mathematical model for the deformation behavior of a rock joint that explicitly accounts for the effects of joint surface topography. The present work is focused on rock joints with triangle-shaped regular asperities. Specimens of artificial rock joint with triangle-shaped asperities were made of simulated rock material and tested in the laboratory. Experimental results are examined to identify three mechanisms that influence the deformation of a rock joint: sliding, separation of asperity contact-faces, and shear fracture of asperities. A modeling methodology is then described and the behaviors of an asperity contact-face, including separation, sliding and shear fracture are discussed. The stress–deformation relationship of a rock joint is subsequently derived and the model performance is evaluated by comparing the predicted results from the derived model and the measured results from experiments.