Modeling of Rock Mechanical Behaviors Under Excavation Using a Continuous-Discontinuous Cellular Automaton

This paper concentrates on the applications of a self-developed numerical model, i.e. a rock discontinuous cellular automaton (RDCA), on modeling of the excavation induced mechanical behavior of rock tunnels. In order to simulate the internal boundaries between rock mass and removal part in excavation, three level set functions for circular interface, elliptical interface and polygonal interface are introduced and implemented in RDCA. By doing so, arbitrary shape and position of excavation geometries can be conveniently implemented with the same set of grid. Furthermore, the excavation and the induced crack propagation can be represented and simulated without explicitly meshing. The reliability and versatility of RDCA in the modeling of rock mechanical under excavation are demonstrated.