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Coupled Viscous Fluid Flow and Joint Deformation Analysis for Grout Injection in a Rock Joint

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Abstract

Fluid flow modeling is a major area of interest within the field of rock mechanics. The main objective of this study is to gain insight into the performance of grout injection inside jointed rock masses by numerical modeling of grout flow through a single rock joint. Grout flow has been widely simulated using non-Newtonian Bingham fluid characterized by two main parameters of dynamic viscosity and shear yield strength both of which are time dependent. The increasing value of these properties with injection time will apparently affect the parameters representing the grouting performance including grout penetration length and volumetric injection rate. In addition, through hydromechanical coupling a mutual influence between the injection pressure from the one side and the joint opening/closing behavior and the aperture profile variation on the other side is anticipated. This is capable of producing a considerable impact on grout spread within the rock joints. In this study based on the Bingham fluid model, a series of numerical analysis has been conducted using UDEC to simulate the flow of viscous grout in a single rock joint with smooth parallel surfaces. In these analyses, the time-dependent evolution of the grout fluid properties and the hydromechanical coupling have been considered to investigate their impact on grouting performance. In order to verify the validity of these simulations, the results of analyses including the grout penetration length and the injection flow rate were compared with a well-known analytical solution which is available for the simple case of constant grout properties and non-coupled hydraulic analysis. The comparison demonstrated that the grout penetration length can be overestimated when the time-dependent hardening of grout material is not considered. Moreover, due to the HM coupling, it was shown that the joint opening induced by injection pressure may have a considerable increasing impression on the values of penetration length and injected grout volume.

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Abbreviations

a :

Constant joint aperture

a 0 :

Initial aperture under zero normal stress

a e :

Total equivalent aperture

a i :

Local aperture

I :

Grouting penetration length

I D :

Relative penetration length

I max :

Maximum penetration length

K g :

Bulk modulus of grout

k n :

Normal stiffness of joint

L :

Length of circular pipe with fluid flow

l i :

Length of each domain

n :

Number of domains

p, p g :

Grout injection pressure

p 0 :

Domain pressure at previous time step

p f :

Initial fluid pressure

Q, q :

Volumetric injection flow rate

r :

Radius of circular pipe with fluid flow

t :

Grouting time

t 0 :

Characteristic grouting time

t D :

Relative time

V :

Injected grout volume

V 0 :

Domain volume at previous time step

V m :

Mean of domain volumes at the current and previous time step

w :

Width of joint

W/C :

Weight ratio of water to cement

Z :

Half height of grout column

∆p :

Difference between grout pressure and initial fluid pressure

∆t :

Time step

∆u n :

Aperture increment

θ :

Dimensionless relative time

(μ), μ g :

Viscosity of grout

σ t :

Tensile strength

(τ), τ 0 :

Yield shear strength

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank anonymous reviewers and the Editor for their careful reading and critical comments as well as valuable suggestions to improve the quality of this paper considerably. This research was supported by the Basic Research Project of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) that is funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT of Korea. First author was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (KRF) that is funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT of Korea (2017R1A2B4002280).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy and Mineral Resources Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul, 143-747, Korea

    Hyung-Mok Kim & Jong-Won Lee

  2. Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14117-13116, Iran

    Mahmoud Yazdani & Elham Tohidi

  3. Rock Mechanics Division, Faculty of Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14117-13116, Iran

    Hamid Reza Nejati

  4. Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM), Daejeon, 305-350, Korea

    Jong-Won Lee & Eui-Seob Park

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  1. Hyung-Mok Kim
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  2. Jong-Won Lee
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Correspondence to Mahmoud Yazdani.

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Kim, HM., Lee, JW., Yazdani, M. et al. Coupled Viscous Fluid Flow and Joint Deformation Analysis for Grout Injection in a Rock Joint. Rock Mech Rock Eng 51, 627–638 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1339-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1339-3

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