ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.

Sec. Geohazards and Georisks

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1650732

This article is part of the Research TopicNatural Disaster Prediction Based on Experimental and Numerical MethodsView all 20 articles

On the Strength and Failure Mechanism of Confined Pre-Holed Jointed Rock Mass via DIC

Provisionally accepted
Wei  WangWei Wang1Yundong  BiYundong Bi2Shuo  YangShuo Yang3*
  • 1Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China
  • 2China Railway Shanghai Group, Shanghai, China
  • 3Xuzhou University of Technology, Xuzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

As the development of deep underground engineering in modern days (i.e. exploitation of geo-energy and underground constructions), a higher demand arises for an accurate prediction of ground deformation and stability. For jointed rock mass with anisotropy, stress field and the structure of surrounding rock mass change with the underground construction, for example during deep-ground tunnel excavation which is associated with ground depth and joint angles. Currently, it is difficult to reasonably predict localized deformation of jointed rock mass with existing theory.In this paper, characteristics of strength and failure mechanism of pre-holed jointed rock mass is experimentally investigated by adopting the digital image correlation and acoustic emission methods. The role of buried depth is considered with confining boundary applied during experiments. To precisely characterize deformation patterns and capture cracking via DIC, tests on DIC parameters and analysis algorithms are further carried out. Results show that joint inclination and confining condition exert a notable influence on the mechanical properties and failure behaviour of rock masses with centering holes. Rock mass exhibits ductile failure while applied with a confined boundary. The confining associated with buried depth in practical would pose an influence on the strength of the rock in particular for oblique jointed situations. The perpendicularjointed condition poses the most significant risk in both shallow and deep buried conditions due to its relatively lower strength and the maintained brittle failure mode.

Keywords: Pre-holed jointed rock mass, Confining condition, digital image correlation, Failure mode, Crack pattern

Received: 20 Jun 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Bi and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Shuo Yang, Xuzhou University of Technology, Xuzhou, China

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