Scale effect of mechanical properties of jointed rock mass: A numerical study based on particle flow code

The synthetic rock mass (SRM) were used to investigate the influence of specimen size on the mechanical properties of jointed rock mass. The SRM were established based on parallel bond model (PBM) and smooth joint model (SJM) and the scaled rock specimens were sampled in two SRMs considering three sampling locations. The research results show that the smaller the initial fracture density is, the greater the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), elastic modulus (E) is when compared with the same sampling location. The mechanical properties of rock specimens obtained by different sampling methods in different SRMs have different scale effects. The strength of rock specimens with more new cracks is not necessarily less than that of rock specimens with fewer new cracks and the failure of rock is caused by the formation of macro-fracture surface.