Mathematic simulation and parameters determination of slacking process of weak rocks

Abstract

Slacking experiments were performed on the red beds weak rock from vicinity of Changsha. Grain size distribution of the slacking rock was tested periodically during the experiments, which can be used to describe the physical transition of red beds weak rock during slacking process. According to the similar characters of many attributions such as environmental moisture, mineralogical composition, grain size and other factors between big rocks before slacking and its slacked product, the self-similar property of big rock and the small one can be induced. Fractal concept was introduced to construct the slacking model of red beds weak rock. Combining the supposed relationship of time for slacking and grain size of weak rock, the mathematic simulation of slacking process of red beds weak rock was conducted. To simplify the parameters back calculation, the fractal model proposed by Tyler and Wheatcraft was introduced to describe the characters of grain size distribution variation. The results show that the fractal dimension calculated from simulation data meet experiments data closely, which proves that the mathematic simulation method is reasonable and the parameters determination method is effective.