Numerical modals for the mechanical analysis of rock have to include the effects of discontinuities (e.g., joints) to be close to reality. In the present paper, the fundamentals of the elasto-plastic analysis as applied to rock discontinuities are briefly reviewed within the general scope of finite element analysis. Starting from a varsatile and fairly comprehensive law obtained heuristically from experimental results and published in the literature, a step-by-step discussion to obtain a correct elasto-plastic FE, mechanical model is presented. It is shown that the model includes effects like dilation and plastic hardening and softening. Implementation aspects and flow charts have been included to describe the whole way to a working program. Computational results for simple problems show the variety of loading and unloading effect attainable by the model described.     «

Numerical modals for the mechanical analysis of rock have to include the effects of discontinuities (e.g., joints) to be close to reality. In the present paper, the fundamentals of the elasto-plastic analysis as applied to rock discontinuities are briefly reviewed within the general scope of finite element analysis. Starting from a varsatile and fairly comprehensive law obtained heuristically from experimental results and published in the literature, a step-by-step discussion to obtain a correct...     »