We consider the system of equations governing an incompressible immiscible two-phase flow within an heterogeneous porous medium made of two different rock types. Since the capillary pressure function depends on the rock type, the capillary pressure field might be discontinuous at the interface between the rocks. We introduce multivalued phase pressures to give a sense to the transmission condit...

The existing failure criteria to evaluate discontinuous rocks are predominatly based on the relations between principal stresses at failure. None of the criteria has a direct reference to the magnitude of deformation as a major parameter in rock Several reasons are identified indicating that the selection of peak stress as a major parameter, which is obtained through the evaluation of a failure...

A rock mass is a material quite different from other structural materials used in civil engineering. It is heterogeneous and quite often discontinuous, but is one of the materials in the earth's crust, which is most used in man's construction. Ideally, a rock mass is composed of a system of rock blocks and fragments separated by discontinuities forming a material in which all elements behave in...

It is generally accepted that the identification and characterisation of discontinuities in discontinuous rock masses is one of the most important aspects in rock mass modelling. Traditional manual field survey methods for gathering discontinuity properties are biased, hazardous, difficult and time-consuming. This paper describes a computer approach, based on terrestrial laser scan data, which ...

This paper investigates the expected benefits of the implicit time integration scheme in the solution of jointed rock problems. Discontinuous Deformation Analyses (DDA) exploits the unconditional stability of the implicit time integration scheme, and allows the time step size of the solution to be much larger than the critical time step size dictated by the stability requirement of the explicit...

This paper deals with the statistical analysis of the uniaxial compressive strength and of the elastic modulus of jointed rock masses under different confining pressures. Properties of the rock masses with different joint fabric, with and without gouge have been considered in the analysis. A large amount of experimental data of jointed rock masses from the literature has been compiled and used ...

Karst regions have a shallow soil layer, discontinuous cover, high rock exposure rate, calcium-rich and alkaline soil, fertile but small total [...]