A Voronoi element based-numerical manifold method (VE-NMM) for investigating micro/macro-mechanical properties of intact rocks

In this study, a two-dimensional Voronoi element based-numerical manifold method (VE-NMM) was developed as a new approach to investigate the micro- and macro- mechanical properties of intact rocks. The Voronoi technique was used to generate a polygonal grain assemblage to approximate the microstructure of sandstone samples from Gubei colliery of Huainan mining area in China. A modified contact model incorporating cohesion and tensile strength was adopted to interpret the interactions between rock grains. A series of laboratory tests, i.e. scanning electron microscope tests, uniaxial compression and Brazilian tests were carried out to obtain the microstructural information and macro-mechanical properties of the sandstone samples. To verify the proposed VE-NMM, simulations of Brazilian tensile splitting and uniaxial compressive tests were carried out and the results, in terms of strength, elastic constant and crack distribution, were compared to those of the laboratory tests. To investigate the effects of grain size on the micro-mechanical parameters and the representative elementary volume (REV) size, numerical uniaxial compression tests with different grain sizes (2mm, 3 mm and 4 mm) were conducted using the developed VE-NMM approach. Simulation results indicate that both the micro-mechanical parameters and the representative elementary volume size are heavily dependent on grain size.