Joint Tutorial 5-1

Joint Tutorial

10 MPa

10 MPa

- 27.5 , 3.5 27.5 , 3.5

- 2.5 , 0 2.5 , 0

external boundary expansion factor = 5

This tutorial involves a circular opening of 2.5 meter radius, to be

excavated close to a horizontal plane of weakness (joint), located 3.5
meters above the center of the circular opening.

For this analysis, the rock mass is assumed to be elastic, but the joint
will be allowed to slip, illustrating the effect of a plane of weakness on
the elastic stress distribution near an opening. (This example is based on
the one presented on pg. 193 of Brady and Brown, Rock Mechanics for
Underground Mining, 1985 – consult this reference for further
information.)

The finished product of this tutorial can be found in the Tutorial 05

Joint.fez file located in the Examples > Tutorial folder in your Phase2
installation folder.

Model

If you have not already done so, start the Phase2 Model program by
selecting Programs → Rocscience → Phase2 6.0 → Phase2 from the Start
menu.

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Entering Boundaries
First create the circular excavation as follows:

Select: Boundaries → Add Excavation

1. Right-click the mouse and select the Circle option from the popup
menu. You will see the Circle Options dialog.

2. Select the Center and radius option, and enter a radius of 2.5.
Enter Number of segments = 32 and select OK.

3. You will be prompted to enter the circle center. Enter 0,0 in the
prompt line, and the circular excavation will be created.

Now add the external boundary.

Select: Boundaries → Add External

9 Enter:
Boundary Type = Box
9 Expansion Factor = 5

Enter an Expansion Factor of 5, and select OK, and the external boundary
will be automatically created.

Now add the joint to the model.

Select: Boundaries → Add Joint

You will see the Add Joint dialog, which allows you to select a Joint
property type, end condition and installation stage. We will use the
default selections, so just select OK.

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NOTE: see the Phase2 Help system for a discussion of the Joint End
Condition option.

Now enter the following coordinates defining the joint.

Enter vertex [t=table,i=circle,esc=cancel]: -30 3.5

Enter vertex [...]: 30 3.5
Enter vertex [...,enter=done,esc=cancel]: press Enter

The joint is now added to the model. Note that the “closed” Joint End
Condition is indicated by an icon of a circle with a triangle inside, at both
ends of the joint.

Phase2 automatically Note that the two points defining the joint were actually entered just
intersects boundaries and outside of the external boundary, and Phase2 automatically intersected
adds vertices when the boundaries and added new vertices. This capability of Phase2 is very
required. useful, for example when:

• the user does not know the exact intersection of two lines, the
automatic intersection capability of Phase2 saves the user the trouble
of having to calculate such intersections, or when

• new vertices are required at known locations, they can be created

automatically (rather than manually with the Add Vertices option).

Note: you could have entered (-27.5, 3.5) and (27.5,3.5) at the above
prompts (i.e. points “exactly” on the external boundary) and achieved the
same result. However, to be on the safe side, we entered points slightly
beyond the boundary, to ensure intersection between the newly entered
joint boundary, and the existing external boundary.

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 Joint Tutorial 5-4

All boundaries have now been entered, so we can go ahead and mesh the
model.

Meshing
We will now proceed to generate the finite element mesh. First let’s
customize the Number of Excavation nodes in Mesh Setup.

Select: Mesh → Mesh Setup

In the Mesh Setup dialog, enter Number of Excavation Nodes = 64. Select
OK.

Now discretize the boundaries.

Select: Mesh → Discretize

This will automatically discretize all of the model boundaries. The

discretization forms the framework for the finite element mesh. Notice
the summary of discretization shown in the status bar, indicating the
number of discretizations for each boundary type.

Discretizations: Excavation=64, External=112, Joint=75

Note that the # of excavation discretizations = 64, which is exactly what

we entered in the Mesh Setup dialog, and is twice the number of line
segments entered for the circular excavation. Therefore each line
segment of the excavation will have two finite elements on it when the
mesh is generated.

Now select the Mesh option from the toolbar or the Mesh menu, to
generate the finite element mesh.

Select: Mesh → Mesh

The finite element mesh is generated, with no further intervention by the

user. When finished, the status bar will indicate the number of elements
and nodes in the mesh.

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ELEMENTS = 3256 NODES = 1759

If you have followed the steps correctly so far, you should get the same
number of nodes and elements as indicated above.

Boundary Conditions
For this tutorial, no boundary conditions need to be specified by the user,
therefore the default boundary condition will be in effect, which is a fixed
(i.e. zero displacement) condition for the external boundary.

Field Stress
We will be using the default field stress for this model, which is a
constant hydrostatic stress field with Sigma 1 = Sigma 3 = Sigma Z = 10
MPa. Therefore you do not have to enter any field stress parameters, the
values we want are already in effect.

Properties
The properties of the rock mass and the joint must now be entered.

Select: Properties → Define Materials

9 Enter:
9 Name = rock mass
Init.El.Ld.=Fld Stress Only
Material Type = Isotropic
Young’s Modulus = 20000
9 Poisson’s Ratio = 0.25
Failure Crit. = Mohr Coul.
Material Type = Elastic
Tens. Strength = 0
Fric. Angle (peak) = 35
Cohesion (peak) = 10.5

With the first tab selected in the Define Material Properties dialog, enter
the above properties (only a Poisson’s ratio of 0.25 needs to be entered, all
other properties should be at the correct values). Select OK.

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 Joint Tutorial 5-6

You have just defined the rock mass properties, now do the same for the
joint properties.

Select: Properties → Define Joints

9 Enter:
Name = Joint 1
Normal Stiffness = 250000
Shear Stiffness = 100000
9 Slip Criterion = Mohr Coul.
Tensile Strength = 0
Cohesion = 0
9 Friction Angle = 20
9 Initial Joint Def. = … (off)

With the first tab selected in the Define Joint Properties dialog, enter the
above properties. Note – turn OFF Initial Joint Deformation, by clearing
the checkbox.

You have now defined all the required properties for the model. Since you
entered both the rock mass and the joint properties with the first tab
selected in the Define Properties dialogs, you do not have to Assign these
properties to your model. Phase2 automatically assigns the Material 1
and Joint 1 properties for you.

However, we still have to use the Assign Properties option to excavate

the material within the circular excavation.

Right-click shortcut for Assigning

Assignment of properties and excavation can be easily done with a right-
click shortcut, which we will now demonstrate.

1. Right-click the mouse within the circular excavation.

2. In the popup menu, go to the Assign Materials sub-menu, and

select the Excavate option.

That’s it, the excavation has been excavated in two quick steps, using the
right-click shortcut.

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TIP: when you have a lot of property assignments and excavating to do

(e.g. for complex multi-stage models), it is easier to use the Assign
Properties dialog to carry out assignments. However, when you only need
to make one or two property or excavation assignments, or modifications
to existing assignments, the right-click shortcut is very convenient and
often faster to use.

You have now completed the modeling for this tutorial, your model
should appear as shown below.

Figure 5-1: Finished model – Phase2 Joint Tutorial

Compute

Before you analyze your model, save it as a file called joint.fez.

Select: File → Save

Use the Save As dialog to save the file. You are now ready to run the
analysis.

Select: Analysis → Compute

The Phase2 Compute engine will proceed in running the analysis. When
completed, you will be ready to view the results in Interpret.

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Interpret

To view the results of the analysis:

Select: Analysis → Interpret

This will start the Phase2 Interpret program.

First let’s zoom in so that we can get a better look at what’s going on near
the excavation.

Select: View → Zoom → Zoom Excavation

That zooms us in a bit too close, so select the Zoom Out button on the
Zoom toolbar 3 times, to zoom back out a bit (or press the F4 key three
times).

Select: View → Zoom → Zoom Out

(Note: we could have used Zoom Window to achieve the same result. The
advantage of the above procedure, is that it gives us an exactly
reproducible view of the model each time we use it.)

Observe the effect of the joint on the Sigma 1 contours. Notice the
discontinuity of the contours above and below the joint. The effect of the
joint is to deflect and concentrate stress in the region between the
excavation and the joint. Now view the strength factor contours.

Select:

Notice the discontinuity of the strength factor contours above and below
the joint. Now view the Total Displacement contours.

Select:

The discontinuity of the displacement contours is not apparent. However,

if you experiment with different contour options (e.g. try the Filled (with
Lines) mode, the discontinuity of the displacement contours can be seen.
This is left as an optional exercise.

TIP: the appearance of contour plots, and your interpretation of them,

can change significantly if you use different Contour Options. The
contour style, range, and number of intervals, can all affect your
interpretation of the data.

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Joint Yielding
Now let’s check for yielding of the joint. Select the Yielded Joints button
in the toolbar.

The yielded joint elements are highlighted in red on the model, and the
number of yielded elements is displayed in the status bar:

16 Yielded joint elements

Two separate zones of yielding in the joint can be seen, to the right and
left of the excavation. View the Strength Factor and Sigma 1 contours,
and notice that the region of joint slip corresponds to the region of
contour discontinuity, above and below the joint.

Figure 5-2: Yielded joint elements above excavation.

Remember that the joint is allowed to slip because when we defined the
joint properties, we used the Mohr-Coulomb slip criterion, with a friction
angle of 20 degrees.

Let’s quickly verify that there are 16 yielded joint elements. Right-click
the mouse and select Display Options.

In the Display Options dialog, select Discretizations and select Done.

You can now count the yielded joint elements, and there are in fact 16 (8
in the left yielded region, and 8 in the right). Toggle off the display of
Discretizations in the Display options dialog.

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Graphing Joint Data

Graphs of normal stress, shear stress, normal displacement and shear
displacement can be easily obtained for joints, using the Graph Joint
Data option.

Select: Graph → Graph Joint Data

Since there is only one joint in the model, it is automatically selected, and
you will see the Graph Joint Data dialog:

The Graph Joint Data

option is also available if
you right-click on a joint.

Just select Create Plot, to generate a plot of Normal Stress along the
length of the joint.

Figure 5-3: Normal stress along joint.

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As expected, there is a sharp drop in normal stress where the joint passes
over the excavation.

Notice the number 1 at the end of the curve. If you switch back to the
model view, you will also see a number 1 on the joint. This serves two
purposes: 1) if there are multiple joints in your model, this number serves
as an ID number and 2) it identifies which end of the joint corresponds to
the end of the curve. For this example, it does not matter, since the joint
and model are symmetric. If the model were not symmetric, then the
location of the ID number would be important.

Now repeat the above procedure, to create a graph of shear stress along
the joint (in the Graph Joint Data dialog, select the Data to Plot as Shear
Stress, and select Create Plot.)

Figure 5-4: Shear stress along joint.

Notice the reversal of the shear stress direction over the excavation. It is
this sense of slip which produces the inward displacement of rock on the
underside of the plane of weakness.

It is left as an optional exercise, to create graphs of normal displacement

and shear displacement for the joint, and verify that the shape of the
graphs correspond to the normal and shear stress plots. (Normal and
shear displacement for joints refers to the relative movement of nodes on
opposite sides of the joint).

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Additional Exercise

Critical Friction Angle for Slip

Calculations in Brady & Brown indicate that if the angle of friction for
the plane of weakness exceeds about 24°, no slip is predicted on the
plane, and the elastic stress distribution can be maintained. As an
exercise, run the analysis using angles of friction for the joint of 20 to 24
degrees, and then use the Yielded Joints option (as described above), to
check the slip on the joint. You should find the results below:

Number of yielded joint

Angle of friction for joint
elements

20° 16
21° 12
22° 8
23° 4
24° 0

Table 5-1: Effect of joint friction angle on joint slip.

The results above confirm that the critical angle for joint slip in this
example, is around 24 degrees.

Reference for Tutorial 5

Brady, B.H.G. and Brown, E.T., Rock Mechanics for Underground

Mining, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1985, pp193-194.

Phase2 v.6.0 Tutorial Manual