Rock mass effective properties from a DFN approach

New conference paper: Darcel, C., Davy, P., Le Goc, R. and Mas Ivars, D. (2018) Rock mass effective properties from a DFN approach. ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association, DFNE2018 – 780.

Rock mass mechanical properties are strongly controlled by the fractures they contain. Their determination raises strong issues for many rock-engineering applications. To compensate the impossibility to perform direct in-situ measures of these properties at appropriate scales, empirical approaches classically aim to determine the rock mass equivalent properties from simple indicators. Here we propose an approach based on the complete representation of the rock mass as an intact rock with a population of discrete fractures through it (the Discrete Fracture Network).