Discontinuum-based numerical modeling of rock dynamic fracturing and failure

Benefitting from rapid advancements in computer technology, numerical methods have provided powerful tools in rock dynamics study. For example, numerical modeling has been used to simulate dynamic response of fractured rock masses (e.g. Chen et al., 2000; Hildyard and Young, 2002), fracture propagation in rock and concrete under static and dynamic loading condition (e.g. Liang et al., 2004; Zhu and Tang, 2006), wave propagation in jointed rock masses (e.g. Chen and Zhao, 1998; Lei et al., 2006), and acoustic emission in rock (e.g. Hazzard and Young, 2000b). A large number of numerical methods have been applied to rock mechanics problems, such as the Finite Element Method (FEM), Finite Difference Method (FDM), and Discrete Element Method (DEM). These methods are classically categorized as continuum-and discontinuum-based (Jing, 2003). However, most of the attempts have been performed through adopting continuum-based models, which are not basically able to explicitly simulate fracture. To overcome this shortcoming, discontinuum-based models have been introduced. With regard to fracture and fragmentation purposes, the advantages of discontinuum-to continuum-based models can be summarized as follows.