APPLICATION OF POINT INTERPOLATION METHOD IN JOINTED ROCK MASS

In this paper, point interpolation method (PIM) is applied to analyze the nonlinear and elastoplastic behavior of jointed rock masses. PIM is advantageous over the other meshless methods that are based on moving least square (MLS) technique. On the other hand in this study, element-free Galerkin method (EFGM) has been applied to analyze a jointed rock mass for comparison purposes. The domain of jointed rock mass is represented by a set of arbitrary distributed nodes. The essential boundary conditions are imposed in EFGM using penalty method. Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion is used for analyzing the behavior of joint failure. Two numerical examples are considered to demonstrate the effectiveness of method in predicting the elastoplastic behavior of jointed rock mass. The results are compared with those of finite difference method (FDM).