A nodal-based continuous-discontinuous deformation analysis method

In the present work, a nodal -based continuous -discontinuous deformation analysis (NCDDA) method is proposed to simulate the failure process of rock masses. A strategy of dividing the computational domain into "possible destructive region" and "non-destructive region" is proposed in the context of NCDDA method to model the failure process of jointed rock masses at the concerned region, as well as to reduce the computational consumption. In the non-destructive region, the failure of rock masses is not considered, and three -node triangular (Tria3) elements are adopted to discretize the corresponding physical domain. For the possible destructive area, although the corresponding physical domain is also discretized with Tria3 elements, artificial joint elements are adopted to connect adjacent Tria3 elements, and the failure of joint elements is used to characterize fracture initiation and propagation in rock masses. Furthermore, the contact potential which is used in the finite -discrete element method (FDEM) is adopted in the proposed NCDDA method to model large-scale opening and slipping of discontinuous interfaces. Compared to the traditional discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) method, the difficulty to determine the type of contact can be avoided in the NCDDA method. Several benchmark problems and engineering problems are used to validate the proposed NCDDA method for rock mechanics problems. The numerical results show that the NCDDA method can effectively model the movement of rock block system, as well as rock failure processes from continuous stage to discontinuous stage in both experimental scale and engineering scale.