Weizhong Chen

Chinese Academy of Sciences | CAS · Wuhan Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics

Imputing missing values in structural health monitoring (SHM) data is essential for conducting data-driven analyses of tunnel structural stability. However, SHM data is dynamically changing with complex spatio-temporal correlations, making it particularly challenging to impute, especially for continuous or peak missing data. Therefore, this study a...

Civil infrastructure is prone to structural damage due to high geo-stress and other natural disasters, so monitoring is required. Data collected by structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are easily affected by many factors, such as temperature, sensor fluctuation, sensor failure, which can introduce a lot of noise, increasing the difficulty of...

To characterize fractured rock masses, self-developed programs are utilized to generate fracture networks. A nonlinear flow model considering the shear dilatancy effect is established, and a numerical solution method for modelling nonlinear flow in fractured rock masses during shear is proposed on the basis of extended finite element analysis. The...

The structural anisotropy has obvious effect on the time-dependent behavior of composite rock. A series of creep tests and numerical simulations were carried out to investigate the anisotropic creep behavior of composite rock. The creep tests were conducted on Three-Dimension Printing (3DP) composite rock-like samples with varying inclination angle...

Anisotropic creep behaviors of the composite rocks significantly affect the long-term stability of the deep tunnels in those rocks. To investigate the influences of structural anisotropy on creep behaviors of composite rocks, a series of uniaxial creep tests were conducted on composite rock-like specimens with different dip angles. The rock-like sp...

Despite the extensive research on crack propagation in brittle solids, numerous unexplored problems still necessitate in-depth study. In this work, we focus on numerical modeling of multi-crack growth, aiming to explore the effect of material heterogeneity and multi-crack interaction on this process. To do this, an improved singular-finite element...

The initiation, propagation, and coalescence of fractures in frozen rocks plays an important role in determining the deterioration and stability of the geotechnical engineering structure in cold regions. This study proposes a numerical method to consider the interaction of multiple fractures in frozen rock based on the volumetric expansion theory a...

Monitoring of the mechanical behavior of underwater shield tunnels is vital for ensuring their long‐term structural stability. Typically determined by empirical or semi‐empirical methods, the limited number of monitoring points and coarse monitoring schemes pose huge challenges in terms of capturing the complete mechanical state of the entire struc...

Accurate determination of physical and mechanical properties of rock mass is essential for stability evaluation and structural design. To evaluate the stability of bridge foundation buried in the mylonite, a series of laboratory experiments about the short- and long-term properties were studied, and the grouting effect by the mixture of cement slur...

consisting of ferrite-rich calcium sulfoaluminate cement (FCSA) clinker, ordinary Portland cement (OPC), limestone, and anhydrite was prepared. The objective of this study is to examine how the hydration process of the novel grouting material affects its physical and mechanical properties through laboratory tests. This investigation will particular...

Tunnels crossing active faults can be severely damaged by fault dislocation. Based on a freeway tunnel crossing an active fault, a three-dimensional numerical model is established to investigate the influences of the friction coefficient and position of the dislocation surface on the tunnel response under the action of right-lateral strike-slip rev...

Understanding the mechanical behaviour of jointed rock during seismic events is crucial for ensuring the stability of rock engineering. A series of uniaxial compression tests were conducted on granite specimens containing a persistent joint at strain rates (10⁻⁵–0.05/s). Acoustic emissions (AEs) were monitored to detect the rock fracturing, and the...

Ferrite-rich calcium sulfoaluminate cement (FCSA) is widely used due to its characteristics of short setting time, high early strength, slight expansion and low CO 2 emissions. In order to further study the long-term performance of FCSA under seawater environment, this study prepared a quaternary blend based on FCSA clinker, Ordinary Portland cemen...

The modulus of subgrade reaction is a key parameter used in tunnel design. However, the existing analytical relations for determining the modulus mainly focus on deep tunnels in the homogeneous ground. Therefore, the complex variable method was used to develop analytical solutions for calculating the modulus of subgrade reaction for deep circular t...

Accurate prediction of the future mechanical behaviour of the underground structure is important for the traffic system. However, the existing works mostly just predicted one type of property and failed to study the influence of different properties in the tunnel. Besides, most of them predicted future behaviours without considering the external in...

The study of mining-induced stress is essential to ensure the safety production of coalmine. Due to the limited number of monitoring points and local monitoring area, the perception of structure status is insufficient. This study aims to present a deep learning (DL) model to derive the stress distribution characteristics of the overall coalmine roo...

The design and long-term safety of geological repositories for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) are dependent on the precise determination of the thermophysical parameters of mudstone. However, there is no relevant literature on the study of the thermophysical properties of Tamusu mudstone, a prospective rock for HLW disposal in China under the c...

Because of the effect of bedding planes, inaccuracy deformation prediction for thin-layered rock often results in severe damage to the tunnel support in high in situ stress zone. For deformation prediction of layered rock, a series of numerical simulations using a continuum-interface numerical model were conducted to investigate the influences of t...

Tamusu mudstone is a candidate geological medium for high-level radioactive waste disposal in China. This paper investigates its anisotropic hydraulic properties. Permeability measurements were conducted on two kinds of samples, i.e., along the directions perpendicular and parallel to the beddings, under different stress conditions with heating-coo...

An understanding of the creep behavior of clayey rocks is considered fundamental for further development in the fields of nuclear waste underground disposal, underground mine design, strata control, and many other geological phenomena occurring in the earth’s crust. In this research, we performed a series of long-term triaxial compressive tests on...

The occurrence of rockburst in coal mines is closely related to the stress in coal and rock mass. Through hydraulic fracturing measurements in roof, the three-dimensional stress in roof before and after hydraulic fracturing as well as during working face advancing was monitored, and the effect of hydraulic fracturing in roof on controlling rockburs...

Temperature strongly affects the thermo-hydro-mechanical properties of clayey rocks. Using the Drucker–Prager Cap model and available experimental results, an advanced constitutive model is proposed to describe the influence of temperature on the hydro-mechanical properties of clayey rocks. To replicate the stress-strain behavior of clayey rock und...

In this study, a series of uniaxial creep tests were conducted on three-dimensional printed (3DP) composite rock specimens to investigate the effects of structural anisotropy on the time-dependent behavior of the rock. Digital image correlation (DIC) was used to monitor the evolution of the full-field strain during creep tests. The Burgers model wa...

Predicting the future mechanical behavior of tunnel structure is vitally important to prevent accident disasters. However, in most of the existing models, the inadequate consideration for influencing factors reduced the final prediction accuracy. To this end, this study aims to develop an accurate prediction model considering the coupling effects o...

Large deformation often damages the rigid support in a squeezing tunnel. Radial yielding support with a compressible layer is suggested as a solution for large deformation. A compressible layer was constructed between the primary support and secondary lining to absorb time-dependent tunnel deformation. Based on the proposed design method of the yie...

Predicting the mechanical behaviors of structure and perceiving the anomalies in advance are essential to ensuring the safe operation of infrastructures in the long run. In addition to the incomplete consideration of influencing factors, the prediction time scale of existing studies is rough. Therefore, this study focuses on the development of a re...

Predicting the mechanical behaviors of tunnel and subsurface facilities is an effective way to prevent accidental disasters. However, some drawbacks exist in many traditional prediction models, such as inadequate consideration of impacting factors, low predictive accuracy, and high computational cost. To this end, a coupled model based on deep atte...

After lengthy diagenesis and tectonic movement, a rock mass inevitably develops many pores and micro-fissures. A numerical simulation method was employed to study the thermal response characteristics of the rock mass under temperature seepage coupling by treating it as a pore-fissure medium and considering its anisotropic properties. Based on the m...

Freeze–thaw degradation of rocks is an unavoidable problem in geotechnical engineering in cold regions, and the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of rocks is considered to be one of the most important parameters in rock engineering practices. In this study, we examine the relationships between UCS and porosity, longitudinal wave velocity, and mas...

Coal burst has become one of the most serious hazards in longwall coal mines of many countries, and extensive studies have been conducted on the mechanism, prediction, and prevention of coal bursts. However, most of these studies focus on qualitative descriptions of burst environments and specific case analyses. Few studies have been carried out to...

In this study, a simple method was proposed to calculate the equivalent loadings in ground induced by Rayleigh waves at the critical second. Subsequently, a closed-form solution was established for the seismic response of tunnels with composite linings subjected to Rayleigh waves. The composite linings were modelled as thick-walled cylinders, and t...

The occurrence of rockburst in coal mines is closely related to the three-dimensional stress in coal and rock mass. Through hydraulic fracturing measurements in roof, the three-dimensional stress in roof before and after hydraulic fracturing as well as during working face advancing was monitored, and the effect of hydraulic fracturing in roof on co...

Real‐time monitoring of three‐dimensional stress in the field is an effective approach to detect evolving stress in roof rock and to evaluate rock bursts risk. However, the sensors or data transmission cables may be damaged due to the volatile environment found in coal mines, which can lead to the loss of relevant monitoring data, and some critical...

Various investigations have been carried out on the hydro-mechanical behavior of geomaterials, but those of clayey rock are still limited. Among these existing studies, very few data are available related to the thermal effects, particularly the loading-unloading behavior of clayey rock at high temperatures. In this paper, undrained loading-unloadi...

Owing to its importance to rockslides in cold regions, the evolution of heaving pressure, which acts as a driving force for fracture propagation in freezing rocks, was studied using the extended finite element method. For the growth of a fracture, the compounds of migrating water and ice lens deliver pressure from volumetric expansion as water cons...

The unfrozen water content of rock during freezing and thawing has an important influence on its physical and mechanical properties. This study presented a model for calculating the unfrozen water content of rock during freezing and thawing process, considering the influence of unfrozen water film and rock pore structure, which can reflect the hyst...

Mechanical analysis for the full face of tunnel structure is crucial to maintain stability, which is a challenge in classical analytical solutions and data analysis. Along this line, this study aims to develop a spatial deduction model to obtain the full-faced mechanical behaviors through integrating mechanical properties into pure data-driven mode...

The study of the mechanical properties and failure behaviors for coal with different bedding structures at various medium strain rates is of great importance for revealing the mechanism of rock burst. In our study, we systematically analyze the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), acoustic emission (AE) characteristics, failure pattern, and risk of...

Prediction of the further mechanical behaviors is vitally important for tunnel engineering to prevent disasters and maintain stability. It is a challenge for most existing researches to couple multiple influence factors. This study aims to develop a novel Load-Temporal (LT) model to predict the further mechanical behaviors of structure using machin...

Roof rocks in coal mines are subjected to the combination of in situ stresses and dynamic stresses induced by mining activities. Understanding the mechanical properties of roof rocks under static and dynamic loads at medium strain rates is of great significance to revealing the mechanism of rock bursts. In this study, we employ the digital image co...

Foamed concrete has attracted increasing attention in civil engineering due to its unique properties. Permeability is one of the significant material properties that governs its long-term durability. This work presents a method to explore the permeability characteristics of foamed concrete based on X-ray microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) image re...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-021-02233-2

The effective thermal conductivity (ETC) of rocks is crucial for many geological and engineering applications and projects. In this study, a three-component ETC model was proposed, which includes seven parameters, that are, the thermal conductivities of water (λw), gas (λg) and solid phase (λs), the porosity (φ), the coefficient of shape factor (n)...

Temperature variation is an essential factor to influence the stability of concrete structure. In contrast to the uniform distribution of temperature in most existing approaches, this paper aims to study the natural temperature distribution in concrete structure and analyze its impact on structural mechanical behaviors in field. As a case study, an...

Mining roadways in steeply inclined rock layers commonly experience severe deformation in form of large asymmetric deformation, roof subsidence and floor heave, which significantly threaten the stability of a roadway. Using a coal exploration roadway in Anhui Province, China as a case study, the deformation characteristics of a roadway in steeply i...

Real-time monitoring of underwater construction is important for structural stability. To prevent tunnel disasters, an integrated analysis framework for tunnel stability evaluation was proposed using real-time monitoring and statistical analysis. A typical underwater shield tunnel, located in the Yangtze River, China, was selected as a case study....

Stress concentration of coal and rock mass is the intrinsic cause of rock burst, the dynamic evolution law of coal seam stress and roof rock stress during the advancing process of mining face is obtained by using the coal seam stress monitoring system and the developed surrounding rock stress monitoring system, In this paper, the stress variation l...

Shield tunneling is one of the most important technologies for building of underground engineering. Many grouting holes were prefabricated for the requirement of backfill grouting, which is easy to induce local damages and potential disasters, such as leakage and cracking. Accordingly, an integrated workflow for damage detection and stability evalu...

Settlement behavior plays an important role for the stability of underwater tunnel due to the different responses of fractured surrounding rock to external load. In contrast to the traditional analysis method based on continuum mechanics, the presented numerical model using improved hybrid finite element was performed to study the settlement behavi...

Hydro-mechanical (HM) coupling analysis is of tremendous importance in numerous engineering applications crucial to the stability of strata when tunneling in deep underground engineering. In this study, based on the relation between the evolving permeability and porosity and the volumetric strain, a damage evolution model with respect to the volume...

For tunneling in squeezing rock, large deformation induced by tunnel excavation and creep of squeezing rock has been a great challenge during construction. This large deformation would keep growing for a long time, significantly threatening the stability of the tunnel. In this study, a new foamed concrete is introduced. Relative to conventional foa...

The opening of segment joints is considered critical for the stability analysis of a shield tunnel lining. In order to prevent tunnel disasters, an integrated framework was developed in this study based on the laboratory experiment, real-time monitoring, and statistic theory. As a case study, this presented method was employed in a typical underwat...

When tunneling in a hard and brittle rock mass within a tectonic stress zone, dynamic failure of rock mass-rockburst may occur. Considering the occurrence of rockburst is generally induced by a sudden release of storage elastic energy, a numerical analysis based on the geotechnical conditions of the headrace tunnels of the Neelum–Jhelum hydroelectr...

Water inrush disasters originating from completely weathered granite are strongly affected by its physical and mechanical properties, such as the porosity, permeability, and water stability. The porosity and permeability are heavily affected by the particle composition. Meanwhile, a large amount of particles with poor cementation, are transferred b...

Articulated design is considered an effective anti-fault measure to prevent damage to tunnel lining caused by fault movement. A new type of plastic concrete was developed for the Xianglu mountain tunnel of the water diversion project in Yunnan Province. The effectiveness of this concrete was verified by laboratory tests and numerical simulations. T...

Low-rank coal reserves account for nearly 55% of the national coal reserves in China, and it is extremely important to understand their anisotropic microstructure and coalbed methane storage and sorption characteristics. In this study, microstructures that develop parallel to and perpendicular to bedding of low-rank coals are studied through scanni...

The stability of a fractured rock mass around a subsurface opening is critical to tunnel excavation. The traditional underground excavation analysis is based on a continuum description of randomly distributed discrete pre-existing fractures. In contrast to this, we have developed an improved hybrid finite element method (FEM) to investigate the sta...

Using a quasi-static method based on an axisymmetric finite element model for seismic response analysis of seismically isolated tunnels, the seismic isolation effect of the isolation layer is studied, and the seismic isolation mechanism of the isolation layer is clarified. The results show that, along the longitudinal direction of the tunnel, the s...

In geotechnical engineering, fracture fillings or rough fracture surfaces often resist deformation and enhance the equivalent elastic moduli of fractured rock masses. In this study, the normal stiffness and shear stiffness of penny-shaped fractures were incorporated into the open-fracture model to account for the normal and shear resistance of frac...

Foamed concrete is widely used in seismically isolated tunnels. As a linear underground structure, research on seismic isolation of the tunnel along the longitudinal direction is very important. However, few studies have been conducted on the seismic isolation effect of foamed concrete layer along the longitudinal direction of mountainous tunnels....

Longitudinal tension and compression deformations of a tunnel are caused by longitudinal non-uniform displacement of surrounding rock under earthquakes, and the longitudinal equivalent rigidity is one of the most important mechanical performance index in the seismic response analysis of a TBM tunnel. The back analysis of a jointed TBM tunnel lining...

Time-domain analyses have been widely used to investigate the seismic responses of tunnels. However, the earthquake-input mechanism which significantly influences the results, is not clearly understood, and most extant studies focused on vertically propagating waves. In this study, a series of numerical calculations were conducted to evaluate the p...

Due to the strong disintegration and water erosion of completely weathered granite, water and mud inrush disasters are apt to take place in this zone during underwater tunnel construction. The pore, compactness, seepage path length, fracture geometries and their interconnections for water and mud transfer are strongly influenced by confining pressu...