Estimating the relation between surface roughness and mechanical properties of rock joints

Discontinuities in rock masses have an important influence on deformational behaviour of blocky rock systems. For a single rock joint, the roughness of its surface is of paramount importance to its mechanical and hydraulic properties, such as friction angle, shear strength, and dilatancy/aperture. Many methods have been used to characterize the surface roughness of rock joints, such as joint roughness coefficients (JRC), root mean square (RMS) value, structure function (SF) etc. However, most of these methods can only be used in the 2-D models. In this study, we carried out direct shear experiments on rock joints under both constant normal load (CNL) and constant normal stiffness (CNS) conditions, and measured the surfaces of rock joints before and after shearing, using a 3-D laser scanning profilometer system. By using a 3-D fractal evaluation method of roughness characterization, the projective covering method (PCM) and a direct shear apparatus of high accuracy, the relation between mechanical properties of rock joints under different boundary conditions and the change of their fractal dimensions in both 2-D and 3-D models have been examined, which gives a new approach to accurately evaluate the evolution of roughness of rock joint surfaces and its influence on the hydro-mechanical behaviours of rock joints.