A Novel Modeling Approach for Soil and Rock Mixture and Applications in Tunnel Engineering

Xiujie Zhang, Hongzhong Li (), Kaiyan Xu, Wenwei Yang, Rongtao Yan, Zhanwu Ma, Yonghong Wang, Zhihua Su and Haizhi Wu
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Xiujie Zhang: School of Civil Engineering, Guangdong Communication Polytechnic, Guangzhou 510650, China
Hongzhong Li: School of Civil Engineering, Guangdong Communication Polytechnic, Guangzhou 510650, China
Kaiyan Xu: School of Civil Engineering, Guangdong Communication Polytechnic, Guangzhou 510650, China
Wenwei Yang: Ningxia Center for Research on Earthquake Protection and Disaster Mitigation in Civil Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China
Rongtao Yan: School of Civil Engineering, The Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 541000, China
Zhanwu Ma: Civil Engineering College, North Minzu University, Yinchuan 750021, China
Yonghong Wang: School of Civil Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao 266000, China
Zhihua Su: School of Management Science, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, Guiyang 550025, China
Haizhi Wu: College of Mining Engineering, Guizhou University of Engineering Science, Bijie 551700, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: Soil and rock mixtures are complicated geomaterials that are characterized by both continuity and discontinuity. A homogeneous model cannot take into consideration the interactions between rocks and soil, which could lead to misjudgments of the mechanical properties. To simulate the mechanical responses of soil and rock mixtures accurately, a stochastic generation approach to soil and rock mixtures was developed systematically in this study. The proposed approach includes the following three major steps: (1) a combined image filtering technique and multi-threshold binarization method were developed to extract rock block files from raw images. (2) The shapes and sizes of block profiles were controlled and reconstructed randomly using Fourier analysis. (3) A fast-overlapping detection strategy was proposed to allocate the rock blocks efficiently. Finally, models of soil and rock mixtures with a specific rock proportion can be generated. To validate the proposed approach, numerical models were established in tunnel engineering using the conventional homogeneous method and the proposed numerical method, respectively. In addition, a series of field tests on tunnel deformation and stress were conducted. The results showed that the proposed heterogeneous numerical model can model the mechanical response of the soil and rock mixtures well and is much more effective and accurate than the conventional homogeneous approach. Using the proposed numerical approach, the failure mechanism of a tunnel in a soil and rock mixture is discussed, and a reinforcement strategy for the surrounding rocks is proposed. The field tests results indicate that tunnel lining stress can be well controlled within the strength criterion by the proposed reinforcement strategy.

Keywords: soil and rock mixture; digital image process technique; discrete Fourier analysis; failure analysis; field tests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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