Mechanical behavior modeling of rock masses consisting of rock blocks and layers

Rock structures involving rock blocks and rock layers exist in the nature as well as engineering. The mechanical behaviors of such rock masses are controlled by the motions of the rock blocks as well as the deformation and fracturing of the rock layers, along with those complex interactions involved. In the present work, this kind of problems is numerically studied with the numerical manifold method (NMM), a numerical method which essentially generalizes the modeling of continua and discontinua in a unified form by using a dual cover system. In the modeling, the deformation and fracturing of rock layers are represented by a number of manifold elements while each separate rock block is represented as a single manifold element. Such a numerical approach effectively describes the physical problem with favorable efficiency. Rock slope failures are taken as examples in the numerical modeling.