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Spatial Variability and Time Decay of Rock Mass Mechanical Parameters: A Landslide Study in the Dagushan Open-Pit Mine

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Abstract

Mechanical parameters of rock mass in mining engineering feature the characteristics of spatial variability and time decay, and it plays an important role in the slope stability analysis. The mechanical behaviour of rock engineering in low in-situ stress condition is highly affected by the rock mass quality. In this paper, the distribution of geological strength index (GSI) was obtained by geostatistics-based methods to determine the spatial variability of mechanical parameters. Moreover, mechanical parameters of rock masses in open-pit mine are deteriorating continuously in the mining process. A damage model using microseism (MS) data was proposed to describe the time decay of mechanical parameters. Additionally, the dynamic programming method was used to search the rough critical slip surface and factor of safety considering the heterogeneous mechanical parameters. An example was further employed to demonstrate these proposed methods in the Dagushan open-pit mine. The results indicated that incorporation of spatial variability and time decay into mechanical parameters leaded to a fundamental change in the slope stability. Our study helps to provide detailed mechanical parameters, which contribute to a more reasonable explanation as well as provide governance measures for the rock landslides.

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Abbreviations

J v :

Volumetric frequency of discontinuities

T :

Ratio of fracture element in rough discrete fracture network (RDFN) model of jointed rock mass

xv, xi, di, N :

Estimation point, ith sampling point participating in the estimation, the distance from ith sampling point to the estimation point and exponent related the degree of variation

m i :

Material constant in the Hoek–Brown method

U, UE, UD, UM :

Total energy exercised by external forces on rock mass, dissipation energy and releasable strain energy, MS energy in a rock mass unit

EUD, ED, cUD, cD, φUD, φD; D :

Elastic modulus, cohesion and friction of undisturbed and damaged rock mass; damage variable

EMS, VA :

Source energy and apparent volume of MS event

η :

Seismic efficiency

M, G :

Seismic moment of MS event, stiffness of rock mass

f s :

Factor of safety

τf, τ :

Shear stress and shear strength

Ri, Si :

Actuating forces and resisting forces

Gm, Hi(j):

Auxiliary function and optimal function

[i], {j}:

Stage and state point in the dynamic programming method

P, Q :

Number of stage and state point

σ1, σ2, σ3 :

Maximum, medium, and minimum principal stress in 3D space

σx, σy, τxy :

Horizontal stress, vertical stress and shear stress in 2D space

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC0801602 and 2017YFC1503101), the National Science Foundation of China (U1710253, 51574059 and 51574060) and the China Scholarship Council (201806080101). We would like to thank Professor Peijun Guo from McMaster University for his guidance and support, and Andy Yan, Li Xu and Dylan Liu from McMaster University for their help in English writing. We also would like to thank anonymous reviewers and the editor for constructive comments that helped improve this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Rock Instability and Seismicity Research, School of Resources and Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, Liaoning, People’s Republic of China

    Feiyue Liu, Tianhong Yang, Wenxue Deng, Qinglei Yu, Penghai Zhang & Guanwen Cheng

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada

    Feiyue Liu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, College of Water Resource and Hydropower, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China

    Jingren Zhou

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  1. Feiyue Liu
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Correspondence to Tianhong Yang.

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Liu, F., Yang, T., Zhou, J. et al. Spatial Variability and Time Decay of Rock Mass Mechanical Parameters: A Landslide Study in the Dagushan Open-Pit Mine. Rock Mech Rock Eng 53, 3031–3053 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-020-02109-z

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