Abstract
According to the characteristic structural features of jointed rock masses, a natural element method (NEM) model is proposed for the mechanics analysis of jointed rock masses based on the Sibsonian interpolation or Laplace interpolation. In the model, the jointed rock mass is regarded as a system of intact rock blocks connected by discontinuous joints modeled by interfaces. The displacement field of each block is constructed by the natural neighbor interpolation. To deal with the discontinuities of rock masses, the displacement fields are constructed to be discontinuous between blocks. The displacement fields and their gradients are continuous in each block. Numerical simulations illustrate NEM has advantages of both element free method and finite element method, and does not have their disadvantages. The present method is developed for two-dimensional linear elastic analysis for jointed rock structures, and can be extended to three-dimensional and non-linear analysis.
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