ABSTRACT
It is extremely difficult to develop a model that describes the behavior of naturally occurring rock types to a stage adequate for design purposes and yet is simple enough for stability analysis carried out at a reasonable cost. In this paper, the authors adopted the mechanical model of rock joints suggested by Amadei & Goodman (1981a) and implemented it into an existing finite element code, performing 2-D linear elastic analysis. The code, called e-z tools, is designed to solve practical design problems involving a set of bedding planes. The code e-z tools for bedded rock mass was initially verified via a parametric study where the influence of bedding planes and scale effect on the stress and displacement distributions has been examined. A case study was then conducted on a tunneling project in the Swiss Alps.
