ROCK ENGINEERING

Lecture-19: Concept of rock mass, factors affecting discontinuities

PRITI MAHESHWARI
Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Roorkee

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Intact rock and rock mass
Rock mass: 2 sets of discontinuities & intact rock
specimen to be tested in laboratory

Due to presence of discontinuity: stability of rock

mass under a specific loading condition (e.g.
foundation or tunneling)  different from
stability of intact rock

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Intact rock and rock mass
Due to presence of discontinuity: rock mass is
weaker than intact rock specimen showing lower
strength and stiffness

Rock mass: more permeable as discontinuities

allow greater access to water: making rock mass
even weaker

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Intact rock and rock mass
Water: reduces friction along the discontinuities,
and the increased pore water pressure reduces
effective stresses and hence the shear strength

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Intact rock and rock mass
* Stability of rock mass: governed by the properties of the intact rock as well
as relative ease at which the rock blocks can slide, rotate, or topple

This is influenced by dimensions of the individual blocks and the frictional

characteristics at the joints separating the blocks

* In general, rock mass characterized based on properties of – i) intact rock, ii)

block size, and iii) frictional characteristics of the joint

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Intact rock and rock mass
* Frictional characteristics of the joint: roughness profile of the joint surface &
the quality of infill material
Discontinuity: generic term used for description of fault, joint, bedding plane,
foliation, cleavage, or schistosity
Fault: planar fracture along which noticeable movement has taken place
Joints: filled or unfilled fractures within rock mass that do not show any sign of
relative movement

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Intact rock and rock mass

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Intact rock and rock mass
Bedding planes: formed when the sediments are deposited in the rock
formation process, creating planes of weakness, which are not necessarily
horizontal: common in sedimentary rocks
Foliations: occur in metamorphic rocks where the rock-forming minerals
exhibit platy structure or banding, thus developing planes of weakness
Cleavages: planes of weaknesses that occur often as parallel layers and formed
in metamorphic process

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Intact rock and rock mass
Schistosity: type of cleavage seen in metamorphic rocks such as schists and
phyllites, where rocks tend to split along parallel planes of weakness

* Rock mass: can have any number of joints

* No joints: ideally, rock mass and intact rock should have same properties,
provided the rock is homogeneous
* Joints within a joint set: approximately parallel

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Intact rock and rock mass
* Spacing for a joint set: distance between the adjacent joints in the same set
* Increasing number of joints and joint sets: make rock mass more fragmented
 increase in degree of freedom of individual pieces + smaller block sizes

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Factors affecting discontinuities
* Orientation * Aperture
* Spacing * Filling
* Persistence * Seepage
* Roughness * Number of joint sets
* Wall strength * Block size and shape

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Orientation

* Measured as dip and dip direction

* Very critical to stability
* By locating and/or aligning the structure (e.g. tunnel) in the right direction,
the stability can be improved significantly.

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Spacing
* Perpendicular distance between two adjacent
discontinuities of the same set
* Affects hydraulic conductivity of rock mass and the failure
mechanism
* Closely spaced joints: high permeable rock
* Determines the intact rock block sizes within rock mass 
closer spacing imply smaller blocks

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Spacing
Classification based on spacing of discontinuities (Sivakugan et al., 2013)
Description Spacing (mm)
Extremely close spacing < 20
Very close spacing 20-60
Close spacing 60-200
Moderate spacing 200-600
Wide spacing 600-2000
Very wide spacing 2000-6000
Extremely wide spacing > 6000

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Persistence
* A measure of extent to which discontinuity
extends into the rock
* In other words: what is the surface area of
discontinuity
* Area taking part in any possible sliding:
important in stability analyses [Link]
ustration-of-joint-
persistence_fig3_248151172/download

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Persistence
* Although important but quite difficult to determine
* Trace length of the discontinuity, on the exposed surface: often taken as a
crude measure of persistence
* Spacing and persistence: controlling the size of the blocks of intact rocks that
make up the rock mass
* Measured by a measuring tape

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Persistence
Description for persistence (Sivakugan et al., 2013)

Description Trace length (mm)

Very low persistence <1
Low persistence 1-3
Medium persistence 3-10
High persistence 10-20
Very high persistence > 20

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Roughness
* Refers to the
- large-scale surface undulations (waviness) observed over several
meters and,

- small-scale unevenness of two sides relative to the mean plane,

observed over several centimeters

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Roughness

Three different roughness profiles

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Roughness
* Large-scale undulations: stepped,
undulating or planar

* Small-scale undulations: rough,

smooth or slickensided

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Roughness
* Slickenside: standard term used for smooth, slick, shiny surfaces that looked
polished

* Combining the large-scale undulations and small-scale unevenness:

roughness of joints classified in 9 classes

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Roughness
Roughness classification (Sivakugan et al., 2013)
Class Unevenness and undulations Jr
I Rough, stepped 4a

Increasing roughness 
II Smooth, stepped 3a
III Slickensided, stepped 2a
IV Rough, undulating 3
V Smooth, undulating 2
VI Slickensided, undulating 1.5
VII Rough, planar 1.5
VIII Smooth, planar 1
IX Slickensided, planar 0.5
Slickenside: polished and striated surface
a J values for I, II, and III: Barton (1987) & others: Hoek et al. (2005)
r

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Class Unevenness and undulations Jr
I Rough, stepped 4a
Roughness

Increasing roughness 
II Smooth, stepped 3a
III Slickensided, stepped 2a

* Large-scale surface undulations have greater IV

V
Rough, undulating
Smooth, undulating
3
2
VI Slickensided, undulating 1.5
influence on the roughness than the small-scale VII
VIII
Rough, planar
Smooth, planar
1.5
1
IX Slickensided, planar 0.5
unevenness
Roughness: I > II > III, IV > V > VI, VII > VIII > IX, &
I > IV > VII, II > V > VIII, III > VI > IX
Not always that class III is rougher than VII

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Factors affecting discontinuities
Roughness
* Important factor governing the shear strength of the joint, especially when
the discontinuity is undisplaced or interlocked
* Less important: displaced joints / infilled joints / joints with no interlocking

Shear strength characteristics of infill material govern shear strength along the
joint

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Thank You

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