Determination of representative volume element with consideration of linear anisotropy using geostatistics approach

Abstract

Rock masses are highly characterized by size effect due to the existence of complex discontinuities, which could be reflected by representative volume element (RVE). This study exemplified calculation of RVE in Datengxia sluice rock mass analysis with consideration of anisotropy, which extends the application of traditional RVE featured by three-dimensional (3-D) equal sizes. Specifically, fracture network modeling was conducted to generate fractures in 3-D space. Fracture frequency values, which can comprehensively reflect the fracture density, size and occurrence in different lengths, were used to represent size effect of one-dimensional (1-D) parameters. Subsequently, geostatistic theory was introduced to synthesize substantial fracture frequency data and analyze their relationships in different regions and educe convergence size by analyzing the significant sub-theory of variogram. Linear representative volume elements (LRVE) in different directions were proved to be varied; thus, a modified RVE with orthogonal directions corresponding to individual LRVE values were applied. As RVE takes account on linear anisotropy features of rock masses, size effect can better guide parameter selection and numerical modeling of rock masses.

Keywords:

• RVE
• 3-D fracture network
• fracture frequency
• geostatistics
• anisotropy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science of China (Grant numbers: 41877220 and 41702301) and Key Project of NSFC-Yunnan Joint Fund (Grant number: U1702241).