Zhenyu Han specializes in fracture mechanics, rock mechanics, DEM modeling, high-performance computation, data visualization, and programming.
Strength estimation of rock masses is a matter of fundamental significance in rock engineering. Limitations of current experiment capacity and complexity of rock features, however, constrain the understanding for strength assessment. For the contribution to this field, modeling of synthetic DEM-based rock masses is undertaken to investigate the complex interactions between external loading, joint geometrical parameters, and rock strength under direct/indirect tension and true triaxial compression. Based on numerical results, systematic criteria are built to reveal the relationship between loading stress and tensile strength, and the material compressive strength as a function of joint geometries. The potential application of these findings provides a new avenue to assess strength from a view of joint geometries within materials and may simply the procedure of strength estimation in practice.
Zhenyu Han is currently studying his PhD under the supervision of Ruslan Puscasu, Dion Weatherley, and Gideon Chitombo.
Key Publications
Zhenyu Han, Dion Weatherley, Ruslan Puscasu. A relationship between tensile strength and loading stress governing the onset of mode I crack propagation obtained via numerical investigations using a bonded particle model: International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, 2017 (Accepted)
Zhenyu Han, Dion Weatherley, Ruslan Puscasu. APPLICATION OF DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD TO MODEL CRACK PROPAGATION: 13th International Congress of Rock Mechanics, 10-13 May 2015, Montreal, Canada.