Scale effect on the shear behaviour of rock joints based on a numerical study

A large number of studies have been carried out to investigate the effect of scale on the shear behaviour of rock joints. However, the nature of scale dependency of rock joints is still unknown and remains an ongoing debate. This paper investigates the effect of joint length on the shear behaviour of rough rock joints using PFC2D. In this numerical approach, the intact material is simulated by a dense packing of bonded particles and the joint is...