TSINGHUA SCIENCE A N D TECHNOLOGY

ISSN 1007-0214 15/23 pp221-226

V o l u m e 10, N u m b e r 2, April 2005

A Coupling Model of the Discontinuous Deformation Analysis

Method and the Finite Element Method

Z H A N G Ming Y A N G Heqing (f&Jx), LI Zhongkui (^Nf *)

D e p a r t m e n t of H y d r a u l i c and H y d r o p o w e r Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract: Neither the finite element method nor the discontinuous deformation analysis method can solve
problems very well in rock mechanics and engineering due to their extreme complexities. A coupling method
combining both of them should have wider applicability. Such a model coupling the discontinuous deforma-
tion analysis method and the finite element method is proposed in this paper. In the model, so-called line
blocks are introduced to deal with the interaction via the common interfacial boundary of the discontinuous
deformation analysis domain with the finite element domain. The interfacial conditions during the incre-
mental iteration process are satisfied by means of the line blocks. The requirement of gradual small dis-
placements in each incremental step of this coupling method is met through a displacement control proce-
dure. The model is simple in concept and is easy in numerical implementation. A numerical example is
given. The displacement obtained by the coupling method agrees well with those obtained by the finite ele-
ment method, which shows the rationality of this model and the validity of the implementation scheme.

Key words: discontinuous deformation analysis; finite element method; coupling model; line block; rock
mechanics and engineering

handling rock discontinuity, namely, the discrete ele-

Introduction
ment method (DEM) , the rigid block-spring method
[2]

Rock mechanics has developed into a widely applica- (RBSM) , and the discontinuous deformation analy-
[3]

ble interdisciplinary subject since it was introduced in sis (DDA) method . [4]

the 1950s. Rock blocks, which are the objects investi- DDA was first proposed by Shi and Goodman for [5]

gated in rock mechanics, contain a diverse range of
discontinuities, such as joints, fissures, faults, contact
zones, and shear zones. These discontinuities must be
treated properly so that problems in rock mechanics
can be well solved and understood. In 1968, Goodman
et al. proposed for the first time a joint element to
[1]
deal with rock blocks in numerical modeling schemes.
Since then, research into the handling of discontinui-
ties of rock mass has been paid more and more atten-
tion and much improvement has been achieved. At
present, there exist three main numerical methods for
Received: 2003-08-29; revised: 2004-05-18
* * To whom correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: mzhang@tsinghua.edu.cn; Tel: 86-10-62795372
simulating blocky systems. In the DDA method, each
discontinuity may be assigned a different representa-
tive friction angle, cohesion, and tensile strength.
Every block is deformable with constant strain and
stress. Contact between blocks is controlled by so-
called penalty functions, which allow reactions to de-
velop via small block interpenetrations. During each
time step, the iteration proceeds by enforcing no-
tension, no-penetration criteria. One of the advantages
of the DDA method is that as time progresses and the
blocks move and deform, the mode of failure (if any)
becomes apparent and no prior assumptions are
involved.
Compared with the boundary element method
 222 Tsinghua Science and Technology, April 2005, 10(2): 221 - 226

(BEM) L J
, the finite element method (FEM) is more constant all through each block, and deformation of
suitable for continuum analysis and has been widely each block is described by translation displacements uo
applied for a long time in rock engineering, e.g., the and v , rotation angle r of the rigid block, and strains
0 0

excavation of an underground powerhouse . [7]

, Sy, and y of the block centroid at point (x , y ). The
xy 0 0

Recently, some coupling of the D D A method and displacements at any point (x, y) in a block i are then
the F E M has been discussed for rock mechanics and [uvf^T^ (1)
engineering p r o b l e m s [8_11]
. In these problems, e.g., un-
with A = W i ^ ^ i 3 ^ 4 ^ ^ i 6 ] = [ w o v o r o ^ c ^ ^ ] T T
being
derground excavation, we can divide the considered
5 5 5 5 5 5 5

the deformation variables and

solution domain into two different kinds of regions.
_ 0 -(y-y ) x-x 0 (y-y )/2
One kind is the cracking rock region full of disconti- 0 0 0

1
[ 1 x-x 0 0 y-y 0 (x-x )/2_ '
0
nuities or the region adjacent to the excavation, which
is in a discontinuum state and should be simulated by Three types of contact between blocks may occur in
DDA. The other kind is the comparatively intact region a block system. They are contact between a convex
with fewer discontinuities or the field far from the ex- vertex and an edge, between a convex vertex and a
cavation, which can be simplified into a continuum concave vertex, and between two convex vertices (see
state and is therefore suitable for the finite element (FE) Fig. 1). Penetration may happen when one vertex goes
simulation. The DDA-FE coupling methods therefore through the corresponding entrance line. A possible
have an advantage over the use of the D D A method or deformation of the block system must comply, how-
the F E M alone in these cases. ever, with two prior conditions, namely no penetration
Bai et al. divided each D D A block into finite ele- and no tension between blocks. Rigid springs can be
ments and used the F E M to calculate the strain in each added or removed at contact points to meet these con-
b l o c k ' . This coupling approach gives good results
[9 10] ditions.
in the rupture process simulation of earthquakes.
Cheng et al. proposed another coupling m o d e l [11]
. In
this model, the F E nodes coincide unnecessarily with
the vertices of D D A blocks on the interface. This
model engenders the unreasonable coupling schemes
as the F E nodal forces are allocated onto the corre-
sponding coincident D D A nodes according to the D D A
Convex vertex Convex vertex Convex vertex
block area after the computation in the FE region, and
Fig. 1 Three types of contact
each F E node receives the average displacements of all
its connecting D D A vertices after the computation in The total potential energy of the block system is the
the D D A region. summation over all the potential energy sources, i.e.,
This paper presents a coupling model of the D D A individual stresses (for strain energy) and external
method and the F E M to take full advantage of both forces (for potential energy) including the initial stress,
methods to simulate accurately real-life problems. point load, line load, body load, bolt connection, iner-
With this model, we can exploit the D D A discretiza- tia force, viscous force, etc. According to the principle
tion and the FE discretization for different regions. It is of minimum potential energy, the system will arrive at
necessary, of course, that the coupling condition for equilibrium as a result of minimizing the potential en-
displacement and force consistency at the interface ergy function.
should be satisfied in the coupling algorithm. For a system containing blocks, the total potential
energy, 77, can be written as
1 Discontinuous Displacement
Analysis
7 7
= Zii^' 4 Td +c
()
2

i=l
In the D D A method, a rock system is regarded as gath- where on the right hand side, the first item denotes the
ered blocks cut by discontinuous surfaces. Strain is deformation potential energy, and the second item is
the summation of other potential energies. The
 ZHANG Ming ^ ) et al:
equilibrium condition for block i yields the following
equilibrium equations:
^ = 0, j = w
where d are the six deformation variables of block z.
rj
Considering all the blocks, the global equilibrium
equation can then be expressed as
K ." IN
n l
K
N l K
NN_
where F is a 6x1 vector representing the loading on
t FE boundary where the bottom FE domain possibly
block z. The elements of 6x6 submatrix K are deter-
mined by
( = 5 2 7 7
^ lj)rs
ddM ci
Iterative computation is necessary for Eq. (4) to be
applied in a numerical simulation. The process is as
follows. Equation (4) is solved first, and then the de-
formation and boundary location can be determined by
Eq. (1). Rigid springs are added or removed by the re-
quirements of no penetration and no tension at the
corresponding contact locations. Equation (4) is then
modified and re-solved until all contact surfaces meet
the requirements.
2 A Coupling Model
2A General description of the coupling model
A coupling model is presented in this paper. The fol-
lowing describes some main aspects of this model. The
block system under consideration is assumed to deform
and move gradually, i.e., only static analysis is con-
ducted and the final deformation can be achieved
through multiple time steps. In the coupling model, the
system domain is divided into subdomains, a DDA
domain and an FE domain. The FE domain is consid-
ered to be linear elastic and to undergo small deforma-
tion. Hence, the global stiffness matrix remains un-
changed during the computation of this domain. The
motion of blocks in the DDA domain is assumed to be
extremely slow and only the static model is adopted. It
is also assumed that the FE domains remain fixed as
the DDA is carried out.
For the FE domain, the deformation a is the summa-
tion of two parts, i.e., the self-deformation caused
A Coupling Model of the Discontinuous Deformation 223
by the self-load and the DDA-deformation due to
the DDA-load / coming from the action of the ad-
jacent DDA domain. The DDA-load records the in-
(3)
formation of the DDA-deformation in the FE domain.
In this model, the DDA-load is kept in the nodal load
vector of the FE equation and is called the saved-load
and denoted by / s a v e d -
The DDA domain and the FE domain interact
~Ff
through so-called line blocks. Figure 2 illustrates a
D
(4)
simple coupling scheme suggested by the present au-
D
N _ N_
thors. In Fig. 2, the line blocks are those parts of the
F
l} contacts the top DDA domain. The nodes in the FE
mesh are transferred onto the line blocks directly for
convenient transformation of the interfacial force and
r,s = 1,...,6 (5)
computation of the load vector in the FE analysis. In
Fig. 2, the nodes are re-numbered according to the line
blocks in the DDA domain. These line blocks partici-
pate as normal blocks only in the judgment process of
contact information. They do not participate in the as-
sembly of the global stiffness matrix as they do not
have the required attributes of normal blocks, e.g., area,
stiffness, etc.
\^ DDA domain /
\Vl^^ /12 / \ /
' \ / ^\// FE domain ~ / \
Fig. 2 Line blocks: A simple coupling scheme
In a certain time step, once the iteration in the DDA
domain is over, the loads on the FE domain can be
worked out by judging the penetration depth and using
the parameters related to the line blocks. Then, the FE
calculation continues with these loads. The line blocks
usually change after the FE calculation as they are par-
tial boundaries of the FE domain. The DDA iteration
of the next time step proceeds with these updated line
blocks.
2.2 Displacement control in the model
The displacements at the coupling interface are influ-
enced by the DDA domain and the FE domain. The
gradual system-deformation hypothesis necessitates
F E M
 224
displacement control in each time step. Only by con-
trolling the displacement increments in every time step
can we simulate accurately the whole deformation
process.
In each step, it is easy to control the displacements
for the DDA domain, as there exists in the D D A
method itself an upper displacement bound to limit the
maximum possible nodal displacement. Only an ap-
propriate modification of this upper limit by referring
to the FE domain is needed.
However, the displacement control is slightly more
complicated for the FE domain, where the self-
deformation and the DDA-deformation need to be
treated separately. In any case, an upper control limit
of the displacement increment, A<ii , must be as-
signed in advance by referring to the upper displace-
ment bound in the DDA step.
For the self-deformation control, we first carry out
the FE calculation using the fixed load of the FE do-
main and find out the maximal nodal displacement d .
We then divide the self-deformation into a number of
small increments, i.e.,
^^FEM
^FEM l n
'
n
^ M
where is an integer. Each self-deformation increment
A a ' f e m is added to the successive FE calculation until
the last increment is added. Each self-deformation in-
crement affects the line blocks, and thus imposes ac-
tion on the D D A domain.
The DDA-deformation control is conducted as fol-
lows. The interfacial force /DOA that the DDA domain
applies to the FE domain can be obtained via the line
blocks after the iteration of the DDA step. The load in-
crement Af for the FE calculation in this step is
A/" =
/dDA ~~ / s a v e d
where / s a v e d is the saved-load in the FE calculation be-
fore this step. Af relates to the DDA-deformation in-
crement A a D D A through the following incremental FE
equation,
KAa =Af OOA
where is the global stiffness matrix. With Eqs. (7)
and (8), we can determine A a and find out the D D A
maximum nodal displacement increment A<i' x with
which we can scale down all the DDA-deformation in-
crements as follows:
' = rAa , OOA r < Ad hmit
Similarly, we can scale down the load increment Af
Tsinghua Science and Technology, April 2 0 0 5 , 10(2): 2 2 1 - 2 2 6
such that the DDA domain acts on the FE domain in
the same proportion and obtain the saved-load to be
used in the next iteration as follows:
/saved = ^
/ + /saved (10)
If there are still self-deformation increments left, the
final displacement increment Aa of the FE domain for
this step is
Act = A # FEM + A# FEM (11)
Otherwise, it is
Aa = ' (12)
The displacements caused by the original DDA-load
cannot be added to the displacement increment. Be-
cause the two domains interact continuously during the
imit deformation, the load status will change greatly after a
large deformation. In other words, the DDA-load after
this deformation will be totally different from the
DDA-load that actually leads to this deformation. After
we reduce this large deformation, the DDA-load before
mSLX and after the deformation will be approximately equal.
After the displacement control, the displacements in
each step are assured to be small enough, which en-
, (6) sures both domains contact with each other closely all
the time and finally leads to the displacement consis-
tency in the coupling analysis.
2.3 Interfacial force determination in the model
The interfacial force is transferred through line blocks.
In the process of the DDA iteration, the line blocks act
as fixed boundaries and confine the movement of the
DDA domain. The line blocks will act on those normal
DDA blocks by means of normal springs or tangential
force. This mechanism of loading is just the same as
(7)
that between normal DDA blocks.
The contact status between a line block and a normal
block can be examined once the DDA iteration of a
certain step is finished. The reaction imposed on a line
block is determined by the action applying to the DDA
block by the line block itself. This action is also the in-
(8)
terfacial force that the DDA domain acts on the FE
domain. Hence, in the model presented in this paper,
the consistency of the interfacial force at the interface
ma ?
is satisfied.
3 Numerical Aspects
/Ad' max (9)
A computer code for the DDA-FEM coupling analysis
 ZHANG Ming ^ ) et al: A Coupling Model of the Discontinuous Deformation 225

based on the coupling model described above has been The material contact behavior is described by the
programmed by the present authors. The original DDA Mohr-Coulomb law with a friction angle 30. For the
source code is developed by Shi. The linear elastic 2-D whole system, the density is 8xl0 kg/m and the elas- 3 3

FE code is available in many publications. Only the
numerical implementation of the coupling model is de-
scribed here as follows:
1) Generate the FE mesh, DDA blocks, and DDA
line blocks;
tic material parameters are: =200 GPa, v=0.3. The
gravitational acceleration is 10 m/s in this example.
This problem is also analyzed by the FEM. In the FE
computation, only the FE domain in Fig. 3, is consid-
ered with concentrated forces (0,-1.48xl0 kN) at the 5

2) Form the stiffness matrix with the FE mesh and contact points A and caused by the deadweight of the
calculate the self-deformation of the FE domain. Di- DDA block.
vide the self-deformation into a number of equal parts (50,100)

using Eq. (6) so that each self-deformation increment

is less than the upper bound Ad\ i . im t

3) Update the locations of the line blocks with the

displacements of the FE domain, carry out the DDA it-
eration, and evaluate the interfacial forces.
4) Carry out the FE calculation using Eq. (8) using o - "a
the difference of the interfacial forces and the saved- Fig. 3 Illustrative example: A D D A - F E M coupling system

loads in Eq. (7) as the incremental loading. Scale down

Figure 4 shows the deformed configuration of the
the load increments and evaluate the saved-load using
system, with the displacement amplification coefficient
Eq. (10). Scale down the DDA-deformation increments
being 100.0, obtained by the coupling calculation to-
using Eq. (9) and evaluate the displacement increments
gether with the initial configuration. The undeformed
using Eq. (11) or Eq. (12).
configuration is represented by dashed lines; the de-
5) If the displacement increments of both domains
formed configuration by solid lines.
are less than a predetermined value, the iteration stops.
Otherwise go to Step 3 and continue the iteration. The
whole computation stops if the step number reaches
the maximum step number.

4 Numerical Tests

A numerical example in plane stress adopted as a veri-

fying illustration of the coupling model presented in
this paper is considered here. Geometric data of the
system used in the coupling computation are specified
in Fig. 3. Both the left and right corners at the bottom
of the FE domain are fixed in the and y directions.
Fig. 4 Deformed configuration of the system
A comparison of the displacements at the interior
points 1 to 7 (see Fig. 3) for the coupling method and
the FEM is listed in Table 1. It can be seen that the

Table 1 Comparison of displacements by the coupling method and F E M

D i s p l a c e m e n t in d i r e c t i o n ( c m ) D i s p l a c e m e n t in y d i r e c t i o n ( c m )
Point
Coupling method FEM Coupling method FEM
1 0.387 38 0 . 3 9 2 15 - 1 . 5 7 5 17 - 1 . 5 8 2 74
2 0.255 07 0.257 86 - 2 . 7 0 1 81 - 2 . 7 2 3 40
3 0 . 1 2 9 31 0 . 1 3 1 17 - 3 . 4 4 7 76 - 3 . 4 8 5 43
4 - 0 . 0 0 6 86 - 0 . 0 0 6 90 - 3 . 7 0 1 07 -3.743 25
5 - 0 . 1 4 5 22 - 0 . 1 4 7 18 - 3 . 4 5 0 61 - 3 . 4 8 8 32
6 - 0 . 2 6 8 06 - 0 . 2 7 0 83 - 2 . 6 9 6 98 - 2 . 7 1 8 38
7 - 0 . 4 0 0 14 - 0 . 4 0 5 04 - 1 . 5 7 2 13 - 1 . 5 7 9 63
 226 Tsinghua Science and Technology, April 2 0 0 5 , 10(2): 2 2 1 - 2 2 6

displacements at these points obtained by both meth-

References
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d e f o r m a b l e p a r t i c l e s . In: P r o c . 1st Int. F o r u m o n D D A .
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[9] B a i W M , L i n , C h e n A . N u m e r i c a l s i m u l a t i o n s of
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in r e s p o n s e t o 1 9 7 6 T a n g s h a n e a r t h q u a k e . Sei. China Ser.
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D D A m e t h o d . Chinese J. Geotech. Eng., 2000, 22(6): 727-

With line blocks, the DDA domain transfers interfacial
7 3 0 . (in C h i n e s e )
forces to the FE domain, and the FE domain reacts to
the DDA domain with interfacial displacements.
3) The coupling model is simple in concept and the
coupling scheme is easy to implement. The limitation
of this coupling model is that the displacements in one
step must be small enough, which may lower the effi-
ciency of computation.