Improvement of joint definition and determination in three-dimensional discontinuous deformation analysis

Joint property in three-dimensional discontinuous deformation analysis (3-D DDA) is crucial. The joint property in a contact relies upon just one of the contacting objects in original 3-D DDA, which is not always sufficiently accurate and can even yield unreasonable results. To overcome the limitations in original 3-D DDA, an improved joint definition and determination method that simultaneously considers the joint properties of both connected objects for contacts is proposed, which permits the applied joint parameters to change in the simulation. Several numerical examples are evaluated to demonstrate the advantage and applicability of the proposed method. The simulation results computed by the improved 3-D DDA accord well with the analytical expectations and physical reality, while the original 3-D DDA shows unphysical results. The improved 3-D DDA can provide more reliable information in rockslide disaster prevention and mitigation because joint parameters in a contact can be chosen appropriately in real time during simulations. Therefore, the improved 3-D DDA is more applicable and accurate, which can be further extended to more generalized theoretical and engineering problems.