Abstract
Roughness of discontinuities, when clean and unfilled, has a significant impact on rock joint mechanical behaviour and, as a consequence, of rock masses. The need to solve ambitious rock mechanics problems encouraged research to study shear mechanism acting at the joint level and to produce sound models to reproduce it. In this framework, roughness measurement allows to gather information about shear strength of rock joints at an acceptable cost.
A brief summary of published approaches and parameters for quantitative roughness evaluation is presented. Then, measures taken on rock samples extracted in a test site placed in the nearby of Esino Lario, 60 km north of Milan, are shown and discussed. The device used on-site to obtain digital replicas of profiles is a laser-camera profilometer, developed in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano. This device, combining a digital camera and a laser source, uses the principle of laser triangulation to extract a maximum of 746 points/profile. Numerical coordinates obtained by rock joint profiles are submitted to a Matlab® script which computes geometric parameters.
Statistical analysis of gathered data was used to define a minimum number of measures that have to be used to determine roughness of a joint set.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barton N (1973) Review of a new shear-strength criterion for rock joints. Eng Geol 7(4):287–332
Barton N, Choubey V (1978) The shear strength of rock joints in theory and practice. Rock Mech Felsmechanik Mécanique des Roches 10(1–2):1–54
Beer AJ, Stead D, Coggan JS (2002) Estimation of the Joint Roughness Coefficient (JRC) by visual comparison. Rock Mech Rock Eng 35(1):65–74
Grasselli G (2006) Manuel Rocha medal recipient shear strength of rock joints based on quantified surface description. Rock Mech Rock Eng 39(4):295–314
Hoad K (2010) Automated selection of the number of replications for a discrete-event simulation. J Operat Res Soc 61(11):1632–1644
Hong E, Lee J, Lee I (2008) Underestimation of roughness in rough rock joints. Int J Numer Anal Methods Geomech 32(11):1385–1403
ISRM Commission on Standardization of Laboratory and Field Tests (1978) Suggested methods for the quantitative description of discontinuities in rock masses. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci & Geomech Abstr 15(6):319–368
Kulatilake PHSW, Balasingam P, Park J, Morgan R (2006) Natural rock joint roughness quantification through fractal techniques. Geotech Geol Eng 24(5):1181–1202
Lanaro F, Stephansson O (2003) A unified model for characterisation and mechanical behaviour of rock fractures. Pure Appl Geophys 160(5–6):989–998
Lopez P, Riss J, Archambault G (2003) An experimental method to link morphological properties of rock fracture surfaces to their mechanical properties. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci 40(6):947–954
Malavasi S, Blois G (2007) Influence of the free surface on the flow pattern around a rectangular cylinder. In: 9th international symposium on fluid control measurement and visualization 2007, FLUCOME 2007, Tallahassee, 17–19 Sept 2007, p 1140
Patton FD (1966) Multiple modes of shear failure in rock. In: Proceedings of the 1st congress of international society of rock mechanics, Lisbon, pp 509–513
Tatone BSA, Grasselli G (2010) A new 2D discontinuity roughness parameter and its correlation with JRC. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci 47(8):1391–1400
Tse R, Cruden DM (1979) Estimating joint roughness coefficients. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci & Geomech Abstr 16(5):303–307
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mazza, F., Brambilla, D., Longoni, L., Mazzoleni, P., Papini, M., Zappa, E. (2013). Quantitative Evaluation of Roughness with a 2D Digital Instrument. In: Margottini, C., Canuti, P., Sassa, K. (eds) Landslide Science and Practice. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31310-3_27
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31310-3_27
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31309-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31310-3
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)