Particle Flow Simulation of Direct Shear Test of Rock Discontinuities

The stability of rock masses is controlled by the shear behavior of rock discontinuities, and it is hard to investigate the shear behavior of rock discontinuities at micro-scale by using traditional physical test method. With this in mind, Particle Flow Code is used to simulate the direct shear test of rock discontinuities. The PFC model of rock discontinuities is established firstly, and its micro-properties are inversed by using the proposed optimization inversion method based on the asynchronous particle swarm algorithm. Then, the PFC simulation of shear behavior of rock discontinuities is performed. The simulation results show that the number of microcracks gradually increases with the increasement of shear displacement, and the accumulated microcracks result in the shear failure of rock discontinuities.