The discontinuous joints are an essential type of natural joints. The normal force, joint persistency, and distribution exert great influences on the shear resistance of the rock joints. By simulating the uniaxial compression experiment and Brazilian test, the material parameters and the basic size standard for meshing were determined. The symmetrical discontinuous joint distribution of three types were established, the cohesive elements were inserted between the solid elements, and the numerical simulation of the shear test was conducted. The effects of joint distribution, joint continuity, and normal stress on the shear resistance of joint rock were investigated, and the law of crack evolution was analyzed. The results showed that the shear process of discontinuous joints can be divided into four stages: elastic stage, strengthening stage, plastic stage, and residual stress stage. For the scattered joint distribution, the rock bridge can provide more reinforcement for the joints, which enhances the shear resistance of the joints, the stress concentration point at the end of the joint is easy to accumulate more fracture energy, which induces the initiation of the cracks, and under the influence of unbalanced torque, the both-sided joint distribution is more likely to produce tension damage.

Based on the underground jointed rock of the Huangdao water sealed oil depot in China, the shear failure mechanism of bolted jointed rock is studied through laboratory experiments and numerical simulation. Laboratory experiments are performed to explore the shear behavior of bolted jointed rock with different joint roughness. Our results show that using high strength bolts is beneficial to improving the shear strength of the jointed rock, but the high strength of bolts can also lead to the rock fracture, which should be avoided. For this particular project site, experimental results indicate that 15% elongation is the best. In addition, a new numerical simulation method with CZM (cohesive zone model) used for modeling the shearing process of bolted jointed rock is proposed. It can reasonably describe the characteristics of jointed rock as a discontinuous medium, and bolt as a continuous medium, that replicate well the shearing process. The numerical model is then verified by comparing the experiment results, and it can be effectively be applied to the simulation of joint shearing process. Finally, we use this simulation method to explore the shear failure mechanism of bolted joints, and find that the root cause of rock failure is the deformation mismatch between the bolt and the surrounding rock. The tensile stress between them eventually causes the rock to fracture near the bolt hole.

Although boundary conditions can significantly impact the shear behaviors and asperity damage evolution of jointed rocks, numerical studies on the damage of 3D rough rock joints under the constant normal stiffness (CNS) boundary condition have rarely been reported. In this work, the three-dimensional model of the irregular joint surface is established by using point cloud reconstruction technology. Based on the cohesive zone model (CZM), we simulate the shear behavior of three-dimensional rough rock joints under the CNS boundary condition, which is realized by using embedded spring elements implemented with a Python subroutine. We conducted laboratory direct shear tests under CNS boundary conditions. The agreement with the laboratory experimental results verifies the fidelity of the numerical method. Our results show that boundary conditions can significantly affect the shear behavior of rock joints, especially in the post-peak stage. Under the same initial normal stress, the peak shear stress and the number of microcracks in the asperities increase significantly with the increase of normal stiffness. The proportion of shear cracks positively correlates with the normal stiffness, indicating that the normal stiffness affects the joint failure mode. The damaged area and the volume of asperities increase with the increase of normal stiffness. Moreover, the distribution of shear-induced asperity loss becomes more nonuniform, and the loss of joint roughness increases rapidly and nonlinearly.