An empirical method for calculating the roughness coefficient of structural plane with line-plane combination

The shear mechanical properties of structural plane are mainly determined by the surface roughness, and the roughness coefficient is the main method to characterize the roughness. At present, the research on the roughness coefficient is limited to a single dimension. Multi-angle and quantitative calculation of the roughness coefficient of structural plane can avoid the limitation of inaccurate calculation caused by single dimension analysis. Cubic granite blocks with structural plane are prepared by Brazilian splitting. High-precision 3D scanner is used to scan the prepared structural interview samples and obtain the point cloud data of the structural planes. At the same time, three-dimensional reconstruction of point cloud data is carried out by reverse software. The distribution frequency in the Z direction of the point cloud data, the relationship between the section ratio and joint roughness coefficient (JRC) values of the section line, and the relationship between the structural plane area ratio and the mean JRC values are studied. The results show that the distribution frequency in the Z direction of point cloud data can be used as a preliminary method to evaluate the roughness of structural surface. The relationships between section ratio and JRC value as well as area ratio of structural plane and mean JRC are both quadratic function. By numerical analysis, the binary function relation between the mean JRC of the structural planes and the section ratio and area ratio is established, and the empirical formula of the mean JRC of the structural plane is obtained. This study provides a "point-line-plane" idea to evaluate the roughness of discontinuities. The obtained empirical formula provides a new method for calculating the mean value of JRC of the structural plane.