The roughness of discontinuity is a key property that has a significant impact on the behavior of rock masses. Various parameters have been proposed for roughness measurement, and recently, evaluations using 3D DEMs acquired through digital cameras, d...
The roughness of discontinuity is a key property that has a significant impact on the behavior of rock masses. Various parameters have been proposed for roughness measurement, and recently, evaluations using 3D DEMs acquired through digital cameras, drones, and LiDAR have become possible. Nevertheless, due to scale effect and the inherent limitations of 2D profile-based evaluations, there are still issues to be resolved in securing the representativeness of roughness measurements. Although some 3D roughness parameters are being applied to more appropriately reflect 3D characteristics, these parameters do not sufficiently capture complex surface geometries and do not show sufficient correlations with traditional 2D evaluation parameters such as the Joint Roughness Coefficient (JRC) or Z2.
This study presents a new methodology for quantifying the roughness of discontinuity based on 3D DEMs, which considers scale effect while making it possible to convert to traditional 2D parameters such as Z2. Specifically, we propose a formula that calculates Z2 using 3D roughness parameters (Rq, Fractal Dimension) that yield a single value from the 3D DEMs using various synthetic surfaces. In addition, to consider scale effect and ensure applicability at various field scales, we construct a correlation equation that can be uniformly applied across different field scales by including the size of the discontinuity as an independent variable in the correlation equation. Additionally, we verify the proposed equation using natural rock discontinuity data of various sizes. The R2 of the correlation equation is 0.985, indicating a high goodness of fit, and the RMSE for 12 validation data points is 0.030, showing a high level of accuracy.
The proposed correlation equation goes beyond considering scale effect, focusing on roughness evaluation using 3D DEMs to more effectively reflect morphological changes while facilitating conversion to traditional 2D parameters. In conclusion, this approach aims to overcome the limitations of 2D roughness evaluations and to enhance the objectivity and consistency of roughness measurements between evaluators.