Physics Letters A 325 (2004) 355362 www.elsevier.

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Anisotropic characterization of rock fracture surfaces subjected to prole analysis

H.W. Zhou a, , H. Xie a,b
a Institute of Rock Mechanics and Fractals, China University of Mining and Technology, Xueyuan Road D11, Beijing 100083, PR China b Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China

Received 2 February 2003; received in revised form 27 January 2004; accepted 8 April 2004 Communicated by A.R. Bishop

Abstract The mechanical parameters of a rock fracture are dependent on its surface roughness anisotropy. In this Letter, we show how quantitatively describe the anisotropy of a rock fracture surface. A parameter, referred to as the index for the accumulation power spectral density psd , is proposed to characterize the anisotropy of a rock fracture surface. Variation of psd , with orientation angle of sampling, is also discussed. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Anisotropy; Power spectral density; Rock fracture; Prole analysis

1. Introduction The surface topography of a rock fracture plays a dominant role in the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of discontinuous rock masses. Mechanical responses of a rock joint or fracture, such as peak shear strength, are all dependent on shear direction, i.e., the anisotropy of surface roughness [13]. In many cases it is the most distinctive characteristic. Almost all rock fractures exhibit roughness. Describing a rock fracture surface roughness is a geometrical problem associated with characterization of the fracture surface topography, involving the height, shape and inclination of asperities. In last decades, many efforts have been de* Corresponding author.

E-mail address: zhw@cumtb.edu.cn (H.W. Zhou). 0375-9601/$ see front matter 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2004.04.006

voted to the characterization of rock fracture surfaces [49], which can be grouped into two approaches: statistical and fractal [10]. Of these efforts, some studies have focused on surface roughness anisotropy, and different parameters have been introduced to describe it. Yang and Lo [11] suggested the Hurst exponent H is capable of describing the anisotropic characteristics of a rock fracture. Their work showed that for proles on the fracture surface, the Hurst index H of a prole has different values in two opposite directions. Rasouli and Harrison [12] used the multivariate analysis of orientation data to investigate the scale effect and anisotropy of a rock fracture. Roko et al. [13] proposed a modied geostatistical variogram to investigate the scale effect dependency and anisotropy of a rock fracture. By introducing an azimuth angle into the geostatistical semi-variogram, the anisotropy characteristics of

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the rock joint surface can be described using polar coordinates. Belem et al. [14] suggested that the 2D autocorrelation map could be used as a tool for the direct characterization of the real structural anisotropy. In addition, fractal geometry has been used to characterize surface roughness anisotropy of a rock fracture. It has been found that fractal dimensions along transects of a stationary stochastic surface are all identical, even though the surface roughness is markedly anisotropic in other characteristics [15]. This Letter is an attempt to characterize rock fracture surface anisotropy using one single parameter. A laser prolometer is used to measure the topography of both the entire surface and single proles of a rock fracture. Previously, results from the analysis of entire surface topography have been presented in Zhou and Xie [16]. This research illustrates the results of the spectral analysis of slope distribution of asperity heights of single proles on a rock fracture. Furthermore, a new parameter, referred to as the index for accumulation power spectral density psd , is proposed to describe the anisotropic features of a rock fracture surface.
Fig. 1. Schematic view of load setup for rock fracture producing (units: mm, a load is applied to the rock sample by actuator shafts).

2. Rock fracture surfaces topography measurement This study uses a sandstone rock sample from the Myslowice coal mine, Upper Silesian Coal Basin, Poland. The size of the sample is 188 180 118 mm. A fresh, unlled tensile fracture interface is induced in sandstone sample using the modied Brazilian method (as shown in Fig. 1, the ordinary Brazilian test is referred to Ref. [17]). Surface topography measurements of both sides of the fracture (Fig. 2) are performed with a laser prolometer (Fig. 3). The laser prolometer is a non-contact device, enabling one to obtain data les of x , y , and z coordinates. The laser probe used in this study provides an elevation measurement accuracy up to 7 m. The elevation range of measurement is 30 mm and the resolution of the laser beam in horizontal direction is 7.5 m. The currently measured area is a circle with a diameter 153.6 mm, obtained from the central part of one side of the rock fracture surface. The sampling interval is 0.15 mm. A personal computer performs the data collection and processing.

The collected data set of a fracture surface topography consists of both the coordinates and corresponding heights of the object surface. First, the individual vertical proles on the surfaces sides A and B are scanned, respectively; then the samples were rotated retrorsely 15 degrees and scanned again (Fig. 2(b)). In this case, 13 individual proles for each surface are scanned, each of the proles having 1025 data points (one example is shown in Fig. 4(a)).

3. Statistical behaviors of individual proles on rock fracture surfaces It is well known that the spectral analysis is available only for a stationary series, while, the height distribution of a rock fracture surface prole is nonstationary [18] (see also Fig. 4(a)), and thus cannot be analyzed with the spectral method directly. Therefore, the rst step is to transform a non-stationary series into a stationary series. For the non-stationary series zi (1 i N , N is the total number of sampling points

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357

(a)

(b) Fig. 2. Schematic view of sample preparation (a) and measurement of single proles on a rock fracture surface (b) (units: mm. The arrow means the orientation of applied load. is the orientation angle of measured prole to the direction of applied load).

dene a new series si by the following calculation: zi +1 zi si = (1) (1 i N 1), where si is a series composed of the slope distribution (Fig. 4(b)), is the sampling interval. The slope distribution can be related to the height distribution by si zi (1 i N 1). (2)

Fig. 3. Photo of laser prolometer.

Fig. 5 shows the height distribution and the slope distribution of the digitized prole on the rock fracture surface shown in Fig. 4. It suggests that the slope distribution is Gaussian, while the height distribution is non-Gaussian. The auto-correlation function of asperity heights is dened as ACF( ) = 1 N j
N j

on a individual prole) composed by the asperity heights of a single prole on a rock fracture, one may

z(xi + ) z(xi )
i =1

(3)

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(a)

(b) Fig. 4. A digitized prole on the rock fracture surface Side A = 0 : (a) the height distribution; (b) its slope distribution (scanning interval = 0.15 mm, total number of measured points = 1025).

and the auto-correlation function of asperity slopes is dened as ACF ( ) = 1 N j

N j i =1

s(xi + ) s(xi ) ,

(4)

is auto-correlated (Fig. 6(a)), while when the lag distance is ten times more than the sampling interval , the slope distribution is no longer auto-correlated (Fig. 6(b)).

where N is the total number of sampling points, is the lag distance of two points, and j is iterate number available for . Based on the data set of Fig. 4, one may obtain the relationship between the autocorrelation function and the lag distance (as shown in Fig. 6). It is also indicated that the auto-correlation function depends only on the lag distance irrespective of the spatial location, i.e., the height distribution

4. Spectral analysis of rock fracture surface roughness anisotropy Spectral analysis provides an essential tool for the understanding the frequency components of a surface roughness. It has been used to study different topics such as the upper and lower limits of fractal dimen-

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359

(a)

(a)

(b) Fig. 5. Height distribution (a) and slope distribution (b) corresponded with Fig. 4(a) and (b), respectively. (b)

sions of a natural rock joint [19] and the selection of a proper sampling bandwidth for 3D surface topography measurement [20]. The basis of spectral analysis is to transform a process or a series in a spatial domain into a process or a series in a frequency domain. In this work, Matlab , well-known software, is employed to carry out the spectral analysis. The plots of the power spectral density of the proles with orientation angle = 0 and = 90 of the surface Side A against frequencies are depicted in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. It should be noted that, if the sampling interval is equal to , then the highest frequency that can be identied in its spectrum is 1/2, i.e., the Nyquist limit (also the cut-off frequency, is equal to 10/3 mm1 in the present study), corresponding to the wavelength 2 = 0.3 mm. It means the detailed information on the frequency components higher than 10/3 mm1 will be distorted, even if the slope distribution really contains frequencies higher than 10/3 mm1 .

Fig. 6. Loglog plot of the auto-correlation function and the lag distance corresponded with Fig. 4(a) and (b), respectively.

Fig. 7 shows that the power spectral densities of slope distribution of proles are composed of spectrum with different frequencies. To some extent, both Fig. 7(a) and (b) exhibit a similar features. 5060% power spectral density is concentrated on the lower frequencies area. In other words, the spectral amplitude of high-frequency components ranging from 1 to 3.33 mm1 of the surface slope distribution seem negligible in comparison with those of lower-frequency than 1 mm1 . It is indicated that the waviness components of a surface, from the viewpoint of spectral analysis, take a dominant role in the characterization of a surface topography in comparison with the roughness components. On the other hand, when comparing Fig. 7(a) with Fig. 7(b), one may nd the plots of power spectral density against frequencies

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(a)

(b) Fig. 7. Power spectral density of the proles with orientation angle (a) = 0 and (b) = 90 on the surface Side A.

are different from each other. The spectral amplitude in Fig. 7(b) is larger than that of Fig. 7(a). In addition, the power spectral density in Fig. 7(b) is more concentrated on the lower frequencies than those in Fig. 7(a). In order to characterize the difference in Fig. 7, the vertical coordinates in Fig. 7 are transformed into a new variable called accumulation power spectral density. This can be obtained by summing up the power spectral density along the frequency axis. In this way, the power spectral density can be illustrated by a single-valued curve, that is, by a plot of accumulation power spectral density against frequencies (as shown in Fig. 8). In Fig. 8, both the plots of accumulation power spectral density against frequency, corresponding with the orientation angle of sampling = 0 and = 90 , respectively, appear to be similar. However, the ratio of

Fig. 8. Accumulation power spectral density corresponded with Fig. 6.

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(a)

In Fig. 9(a), when the orientation angle is less than 90 , the index for accumulation power spectral density psd increases with the heightening of orientation angle. When < 45 , psd increases gradually with , however, when > 45 , psd increases dramatically with until it reaches its peak value at = 90 . When > 90 , psd decreases with . The index for accumulation power spectral density psd appears to be approximately symmetrical about = 90 . At the orientation parallel to the applied load ( = 0 ), psd is obviously different from that at the orientation perpendicular to the applied load ( = 90 ). When = 0 , the ratio of power spectral density of slope distribution with higher frequencies to the whole spectral density is relatively high (psd = 0.523), indicating high-order roughness (uctuation). However, if = 90 , the ratio of power spectral density of slope distribution with lower frequency to the whole spectral density is relatively high (psd = 0.61), indicating low-order roughness (shape). In addition, when compared, Fig. 9(b) shows a trend similar to Fig. 9(a). For example, the index for accumulation power spectral density psd of surface Side B also appears to be approximately symmetrical at about = 90 . In this case, the anisotropy of surface roughness of a rock fracture can be quantitatively characterized. 5. Conclusions At the orientation parallel to the applied load, psd appears to be different from that of an orientation perpendicular to the applied load, i.e., at the orientation parallel to the applied load, the ratio of power spectral density of slope distribution with higher frequencies with regard to the whole spectral density is relatively high, and, at an orientation perpendicular to the applied load, the ratio of power spectral density of slope distribution with lower frequencies in relationship to the whole spectral density is relatively high. Therefore, it can be concluded that the accumulation power spectral density can capture the characterization of rock fracture surface anisotropy. Acknowledgements The present work is supported by the 973 Program (2002CB412707), the National Natural Science Foun-

(b) Fig. 9. Variety of the index for accumulation power spectral density with orientation angle : (a) Side A; (b) Side B.

accumulation power spectral density to whole spectral density in lower frequencies, when the orientation angle is = 90 , is greater than when the orientation angle = 0 . In order to identify the difference, the following parameter is dened psd =
f =0 1 10/3 1

psd
f =0

psd

(5)

where f is frequency, psd is referred to as the index for the accumulation power spectral density. According to Eq. (5), the results in Fig. 8 can also be redrawn as a variation of psd with orientation angle of sampling (as shown in Fig. 9(a), another result from the similar analysis of the surface Side B is also given in Fig. 9(b)).

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dation (10372112 and 50221402), and CAS Key Topics Program (KJCX2-SW-L1). The nancial supports are gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks are due to Dr. Marek A. Kwasniewski for his valuable suggestions and Jennifer Barnes for her help in preparing the manuscript.

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