Reconstruction of 3D Shapes of Granite Minerals and Generation of Random Numerical Specimens

Abstract

Abstract The existing methods of generating random mineral grains in numerical rock specimens mostly adopt random polygons (in 2D) or random polyhedrons (in 3D) to represent mineral grains. Although this simplification is effective and reasonable, the complex three-dimensional (3D) shape of mineral grains can be reconstructed by computed tomography (CT) scan and image processing techniques, and then, random grains with real shape can be generated in a numerical specimen. In this paper, we proposed an improved grain-based model to construct random mineral grains with real 3D shape in numerical specimens. The granite specimens with granular minerals are scanned by CT. After the CT slices are denoised and corrected, the minerals, including biotite, quartz, and feldspar, are segmented from the CT slices to reconstruct the 3D mineral shapes; these shapes are stored in grain library. By importing the grain library in PFC (Particle Follow Code, a simulation software), heterogeneous specimens with random mineral grains are constructed, and uniaxial compression tests are carried out on them. Results show that the ranges of Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, and uniaxial compressive strength of these numerical specimens are similar to those of real specimens measured in the laboratory. Therefore, the proposed method is feasible and reasonable. This work can provide a reference for the study of constructing heterogeneous numerical rock specimens in rock mechanics.