4 / 2021-10-07 17:25:49

Automatic 3D Calculation of Continuous-Discontinuous Deformation for Large Scale Complex Rock Masses

rock masses,Continuous-discontinuous deformation,Automatic 3d calculation

Different from the human-designed structures, naturally formed rock masses own complex geometric features, and they deform continuous-discontinuously.

For numerical analysis of rock masses, CAD models and conforming meshes are necessary. However, constructing the 3D CAD models for complex rock masses is labor-intensive. Generating 3D conforming mesh according to the elaborate CAD models is also time-consuming.

To this end, based on the Numerical Manifold Method (NMM), we developed a new 3D calculation method. In this method, continuous-discontinuous deformations are calculated with structured meshes. The geometric model for this calculation is defined by image models, which are automatically generated by LiDAR, etc.

Comparing with the conforming mesh, structured meshes can be generated automatically. Calculation with point clouds as the input of geometries avoids the tedious work of constructing CAD models for complex rock masses. The computational expense of the new method is comparable to classical FEM.

All the above-mentioned characteristics provide an automatic workflow to numerically simulate complex rock masses, and make the developed method promising as a powerful analysis tool for large-scale and complex rock masses.