A constitutive model for a laboratory rock joint with multi-scale asperity degradation

This paper presents a joint constitutive model that considers separately the mechanical contribution of waviness and unevenness of a joint to shear behaviour. The critical asperities for waviness and unevenness are determined from geometric properties in a lab-scale joint. The wear process is employed to model the degradation in dilation and strength during shear. From dimensional analysis, asperity degradation constants are developed using geometric parameters including asperity angle, wavelength, and amplitude as well as rock strength and stress. The applicability of the proposed model was assessed by performing direct shear tests on three joint roughness coefficient (JRC) profiles and providing its correlation with experimental results. Additionally, experimental data taken from literature were used to validate the model’s performance.