Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
journal homepage: www.rockgeotech.org

Review

An overview of particle-based numerical manifold method and its

application to dynamic rock fracturing
Xing Li a, *, Jian Zhao b, **
a
School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China
b
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This review summarizes the development of particle-based numerical manifold method (PNMM) and its
Received 21 August 2018 applications to rock dynamics. The fundamental principle of numerical manifold method (NMM) is first
Received in revised form briefly introduced. Then, the history of the newly developed PNMM is given. Basic idea of PNMM and its
7 January 2019
simulation procedure are presented. Considering that PNMM could be regarded as an NMM-based
Accepted 18 February 2019
Available online 13 April 2019
model, a comparison of PNMM and NMM is discussed from several points of view in this paper. Be-
sides, accomplished applications of PNMM to the dynamic rock fracturing are also reviewed. Finally,
some recommendations are provided for the future work of PNMM.
Keywords:
Dynamic rock fracturing

2019 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Numerical modeling Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
Numerical manifold method (NMM) licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Particle-based numerical manifold method
(PNMM)

1. Introduction Due to the complexity of both rock materials and rock engi-
neering problems, rock is difficult to be modeled, compared with
Dynamic rock fracturing involves the topics of crack nucleation, other solid materials. To obtain better results, a large number of
fracture propagation, rock fragmentation and rock post-failure numerical models have been developed, extended, and applied in
behavior. Results of a series of experimental tests (Masuda et al., this field, including in-house software, commercial software, and
1987; Lajtai et al., 1991) have revealed that the fracture pattern open source code. Existing numerical methods for rock dynamics
and mechanical properties of rock materials are affected by the are usually classified into three categories (Jing, 2003): continuous
dynamic strain rate. However, the underlying mechanism of the methods, discontinuous methods, and coupled methods. Contin-
rate-dependent behavior is still unclear. The microstructure of rock uous methods are suitable for those problems whose system is a
material is recently considered as one of the influence factors continuum with infinite degree of freedom (DOF). The behavior of
leading to this phenomenon. When the mechanical behavior on such system is dominated by the governing differential equation of
microscopic scale is concerned, analytical methods are likely the problem and the continuity conditions at the interfaces be-
invalid due to the complex microstructure of rock materials, and tween adjacent elements. The well-developed continuous methods
experimental approaches will be limited as existing facilities are include the finite element method (FEM) (Clough, 1960), finite
not sensitive enough to detect the failure process under high difference method (FDM) (Narasimhan and Witherspoon, 1976),
loading rates, especially those occurred at the inner part of rock realistic failure process analysis (RFPA) (Tang, 1997; Liang et al.,
samples. Under such a circumstance, numerical methods could be 2004; Zhu, 2008; Wang et al., 2014), element-free Galerkin (EFG)
an alternative tool to study the mechanism of dynamic effect on method (Belytschko et al., 1994, 2000) and the related cracking
rock materials at the microscopic scale. particle method (Rabczuk and Belytschko, 2004, 2007; Rabczuk
and Areias, 2006; Rabczuk et al., 2010a), peridynamics (PD) and
dual-horizon peridynamics (DH-PD) (Silling, 2000; Ren et al., 2016,
2017; Rabczuk and Ren, 2017), partition of unity (PU) method
* Corresponding author. (Babuska and Melenk, 1997; Moës et al., 1999; Sukumar et al., 2000;
** Corresponding author. Rabczuk and Zi, 2007; Rabczuk et al., 2010b; Amiri et al., 2014),
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (X. Li), [email protected] (J. Zhao). smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method (Gingold and
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chi-
Monaghan, 1977; Lucy, 1977; Fakhimi and Lanari, 2014; Zhou
nese Academy of Sciences.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2019.02.003
1674-7755
2019 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700 685

et al., 2015), and other meshless methods (Liszka et al., 1996; Liu 2015), and mineral-grain-shaped (Li et al., 2018a,b). On the
et al., 1997; Atluri and Zhu, 1998; Ma et al., 2015). Some reviews other hand, the block-based DEM discretizes the computational
on continuous methods can be found in Belytschko et al. (1996, domain into blocks using a finite number of intersecting discon-
2009), Li and Liu (2002), Nguyen et al. (2008), Liu and Liu (2010), tinuities (Cundall, 1971; Zhao et al., 2008; Gui et al., 2016). Each
and Monaghan (2012). This type of method is mostly used for rock block is internally subdivided for calculation of displacement,
masses without fractures. It can also be used for the rock mass with strain and stress. Adjacent blocks interact in the normal direction
a few or many fractures, the behavior of which is established with a finite stiffness together with a tensile strength criterion
through equivalent properties or other techniques, e.g. inserting and in the tangential direction with a tangential stiffness together
cohesive elements along the path of fractures (Vocialta et al., 2017) with a shear strength. In the standard block-based DEM, rock
and enriching approximation functions in the element containing failure can only be captured either in terms of plastic yield or
fractures (Moës et al., 1999). displacements of pre-existing discontinuities. Therefore, new
Discontinuous methods are suitable for those problems whose discontinuities could not be driven within the continuum portion
system is a combination of a finite number of well-defined com- of the model, so that discrete fracturing through intact rock could
ponents. Usually there is no need to discretize such a system, as it not be simulated (Lisjak and Grasselli, 2014). In contrast to the
has been automatically done. The behavior of such system is explicit DEM, the discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA)
dominated by the well-defined inter-relations between adjacent method is an implicit discrete element method developed for the
components. This type of method is most suitable for moderately modeling of static and dynamic behaviors of discrete block sys-
fractured rock masses where the significant fractures are for tems, originally proposed by Shi and Goodman (1985, 1989). The
continuous methods, and/or where large displacements of indi- blocks in DDA is deformable and can be arbitrarily shaped. The
vidual blocks are possible. The term ‘discontinuous method’ here kinematic constraints of no tension and no penetration between
indicates the discrete element methods and other discontinuous blocks are imposed by the penalty method, the Lagrange multi-
methods, e.g. the lattice models (Hrennikoff, 1941; Holecek and plier method, or the augmented Lagrangian method. Different
Moravec, 2006; Zhao and Zhao, 2012; Zhao et al., 2012a). The from the explicit DEM, the governing equations in DDA are rep-
discrete element methods are a large family of numerical resented by a global system of linear equations obtained by
methods. The distinct element method (DEM) is a class of discrete minimizing the total potential energy of the system, and a global
element methods that use an explicit time-domain integration system of equations in matrix form needs to be formed and solved.
scheme to solve the equations of motion for rigid or deformable By differentiating several energy contributions, including block
discrete bodies with deformable contacts. Since DEM is almost the strain energy, contacts between blocks, displacement constraints
most well-known explicit discrete element method, researchers and external loads, the stiffness matrix of the model could be
tend to use the terms ‘DEM’ and ‘discrete element method’ assembled. After years of development, DDA has been applied to
interchangeably. DEM treats the simulated material as an as- the simulation of various topics, including the rock sliding (Hatzor
sembly of separate particles or blocks. The particle-based DEM et al., 2004; Wu et al., 2009; Ning and Zhao, 2013; Jiao et al., 2014;
(Cundall and Strack, 1979; Potyondy and Cundall, 2004) is mainly Yang et al., 2014a; Zhang et al., 2015), rock fracturing (Kong and
adopted to simulate the granular microstructure of the material Liu, 2002; Bao and Zhao, 2013; Chen et al., 2013; Tian et al.,
through particles with varying diameters. Adjacent particles can 2014), wave propagation in rock masses (Jiao et al., 2007; Gu
contact each other through bonds. The contact is typically and Zhao, 2009), behavior of jointed rock masses (Lin et al.,
assigned with a normal and shear stiffness as well as a friction 1996; Tsesarsky and Talesnick, 2007; He and Zhang, 2015; He
coefficient. Crack nucleation and fracture propagation are simu- et al., 2018), and failure of masonry structures (Kamai and
lated by breaking of bonds. Consequently, blocks of arbitrary Hatzor, 2008; Jiang et al., 2014).
shapes can be formed as a result of the simulated fracturing A coupled method, in most cases, is a combination of one
process. There are typically two types of bonds in the particle- continuous method and one discrete method implicitly or explic-
based DEM: the contact bond and the parallel bond. The contact itly, aiming to combine the characteristics of both methods. The
bond is an elastic spring with a constant normal and shear stiff- numerical manifold method (NMM) is a typical coupled method for
ness function between the bonded particles, allowing only normal rock mechanics (Shi, 1991, 1995; Ma et al., 2010). It provides a
and shear forces to be transmitted. Whereas on the parallel bond, framework to unify continuous and discrete methods by implicitly
the moment induced by particle rotation is resisted by a set of combining FEM and DDA. Recently, a novel numerical model,
elastic springs distributed between the bonded particles. One of named particle-based numerical manifold method (PNMM), has
the major drawbacks of the bonded-particle model is that the been proposed as an extension of NMM and applied to several
straightforward adoption of circular/spherical particles cannot problems in the field of rock dynamics. The purpose of this review
fully capture the behaviors of complex-shaped and highly inter- is to provide a summary of selected coupling numerical method for
locked grain structures, which is common in hard rocks (Lisjak rock dynamics. Specifically, the NMM and PNMM are considered in
and Grasselli, 2014). To overcome this limitation, a clumped par- this paper. As for other coupling numerical methods, e.g. the finite-
ticle model (Cho et al., 2007) was later proposed. In this model, a discrete element method (FDEM), the reader is suggested to refer to
group of particles are glued together to behave as a single rigid the works (Mahabadi, 2012; Lisjak, 2013; Lisjak and Grasselli, 2014),
body. Clumped particles can act like a single particle that has an and its applications to dynamic rock fracturing can be found in
irregular shape but moves as a deformable and non-breakable Rougier et al. (2014) and An et al. (2017). In this context, the
body. Apart from sphere, particles in other shapes have also fundamental principle of NMM is first briefly introduced. Recent
been developed to improve the geometry description of this improvement and applications in the field of rock dynamics are
method, including ellipsoids (Vu-Quoc et al., 2000; Yan et al., summarized and reviewed. Then, the history of the newly devel-
2010; Zheng et al., 2013), superquadrics (Wellmann and oped PNMM model is given. The basic idea of PNMM and its
Wriggers, 2012), polyhedral (Feng et al., 2012; Smeets et al., simulation procedure are also presented. Considering that PNMM
2015), combination of simple shape primitives (Lu and could be regarded as an NMM-based model, a comparison of
McDowell, 2007; Ferellec and McDowell, 2010; Fang et al., PNMM and NMM is discussed in this paper. Besides, accomplished
686 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700

applications of PNMM to the dynamic rock fracturing are also over elements intersected by internal discontinuities and/or
reviewed. Finally, some recommendations are provided for the external boundaries. For the manifold element of a general shape,
future work of PNMM. the simple integration scheme will first partition the element into
several sub-triangles, the same process as the element partitioning
in extended FEM (XFEM), and then conduct the quadrature on each
2. Numerical manifold method
sub-triangle. Another distinct feature of NMM is that the frictional
contact boundary conditions between the two sides of a crack or
2.1. Fundamental principles
two discrete blocks can be accurately satisfied, due to the contact
logic in NMM.
The NMM was originally proposed by Shi (1991, 1992, 1995,
It has been proven that FEM is a special case of NMM when the
1997, 2012) at a series of conferences. NMM is derived based on
following conditions are satisfied (Ma et al., 2010):
the finite cover approximation theory and is named after the
mathematical notion of manifolds.
(1) Mathematical covers in NMM are generated from a finite
NMM feasibly simulates fractures by truncating elements and
element mesh;
their shape functions, and treats continuum bodies, fractured
(2) Weight functions defined on mathematical covers are finite
bodies and assemblage of discrete blocks in a unified form. This
element shape functions;
characteristic of NMM is mainly due to the adoption of a dual-
(3) Cover functions defined on physical covers are constants;
cover-system, namely the mathematical cover and the physical
(4) Physical features including internal discontinuities (e.g.
cover. The mathematical cover is independent of the shape of
cracks and material interfaces) and external boundaries do
modeling domain but covers all the spaces that the modeling
not intersect manifold elements.
domain may occupy. It is usually generated from a uniform FEM
mesh, from which the finite elements that share the same node
Although NMM can be converted to FEM, its distinct features in
form a mathematical cover. Mathematical covers are common to be
dealing with discontinuous problems cannot be covered in FEM.
overlapping. The mathematical covers with different geometric
XFEM/GFEM (generalized FEM) is another numerical method that is
patterns could be generated from several kinds of typical FEM
capable of dealing with discontinuities. Recently, the concept of
meshes, as illustrated in Fig. 1, which are supposed to have a slight
enriched functions in XFEM/GFEM has been integrated into NMM
influence on simulation results depending on the analytical solu-
to simulate complex crack problems (Ma et al., 2009; An, 2010). It
tion of concerned problems (Zhang et al., 2010). On the other hand,
should be noticed that NMM is able to tackle cracks without
the physical covers are the intersection of mathematical covers and
enriched functions in most cases, and NMM furnished with
the modeling domain (Ma et al., 2010). Specifically, a physical patch
enriched functions can tackle more complex crack problems as
is formed by cutting a mathematical cover with discontinuities,
compared with XFEM/GFEM. Meanwhile, since NMM is developed
such as physical boundaries, material interfaces, and fractures.
on the basis of DDA, it preserves all the characteristics of discrete
Then, the union of all physical patches constitutes a physical cover.
element modeling such as the kinematics constraints, contact
The physical cover system is to connect the uniform mathematical
detection, and modeling from DDA (Ma et al., 2010). However, the
cover system with the arbitrary modeling domain, providing local
DOF in NMM is usually much higher than DDA as there is more than
approximation function in NMM. The overlap of neighboring
one manifold element in each block in most cases. The benefit at
physical covers is called a manifold element. A manifold element is
this cost is that NMM provides more accurate displacement and
the basic computation unit in NMM. The advantage of adopting two
stress fields in blocks than DDA. It can be concluded that if every
cover systems for NMM is that arbitrary boundaries and internal
discrete block is a manifold element with linear displacement field,
physical features in the physical domain are allowed without
then NMM will degenerate exactly into DDA.
meshes conforming to them. Therefore, the meshing task in NMM
is greatly simplified and fracturing process can be modeled without
2.2. Recent development and applications
remeshing. At the same time, NMM model fractures straightfor-
wardly by splitting each physical cover that is completely cut by the
In the original version of NMM by Shi (1991, 1992, 1995, 1997,
fractures into several separate covers, assigning each cover an in-
2012), the simplest triangular manifold element with constant
dependent local function. By such a way, complex cracks with
cover function was adopted for two-dimensional (2D) issues,
arbitrary number of branches can be modeled in an exactly way as
lacking criteria for crack initiation and propagation. Since then,
the modeling of a single crack (see Fig. 2). In this figure, a branched
various developments as well as applications have been made in
fracture separates four physical covers into twelve physical covers,
the following decades. Shyu and Salami (1995) implemented
considering that the four mathematical covers in the figure will
quadrilateral isoparametric elements in NMM. Chiou et al. (2002)
lead to four physical covers without the branched fracture.
studied the mixed-mode fracture propagation by combining
Besides, NMM implements a novel simplex integration method
NMM with the virtual crack extension method. Cheng et al. (2002)
proposed by Shi (1996) for both NMM and DDA. This integration
incorporated Wilson nonconforming elements in NMM. Chen et al.
method is able to conveniently evaluate the weak form integration
(1998) developed a higher-order NMM with high-order cover
functions, and then Su et al. (2003) proposed a subroutine in the
commercial software Mathematica to automatically produce ex-
pressions for high-order NMM. Recently, Ghasemzadeh et al. (2014)
proposed a high-order NMM for dynamic problems. Terada et al.
(2003) introduced the finite cover method (FCM) as an alias of
NMM. Lin et al. (2005) developed the formulations of three-
dimensional (3D) NMM with high-order cover functions and pro-
posed a fast simplex integration method based on special matrix
operations, without considering the linear dependence problem.
Later, Cheng and Zhang (2008) proposed the 3D NMM with tetra-
Fig. 1. Typical patterns of the mathematical cover (the polygon indicated by red lines). hedron and hexahedron elements and derived the basic matrices
 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700 687

Fig. 2. The mathematical cover (MC) and physical cover (PC) cut by a branched crack (after Li et al., 2017). Patches are filled with different colors to indicate the relation between PCs
and MCs.

Fig. 3. Road protection from rock slope failure simulated by 3D NMM (He et al., 2013).

for equilibrium equations. He and Ma (2010) also proposed a 3D functions at both elemental and global levels. Yang and Zheng
NMM based on tetrahedron elements (Fig. 3). An et al. (2011) (2016) and Xu et al. (2017) recently proposed a high-order local
investigated the linear dependence problem of NMM approxima- approximation function and eliminated the linear dependence on
tion space using finite element covers and polynomial local the triangular and quadrilateral mathematical meshes, respectively.
688 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700

Their model has a higher order of global approximations, better refined the mathematical covers near crack tips. Ning et al. (2011),
accuracy and continuous nodal stress, and was then applied to the An et al. (2014) and Zheng et al. (2014a) analyzed the stability of
fracture analysis as well as free and forced vibration analysis of rock slopes with 2D NMM, while He et al. (2013) and Liu et al.
solids (Yang et al., 2016a,b,c; Yang and Zheng, 2016). Cai et al. (2013) (2017) extended the analysis to 3D cases. Zheng et al. (2014b)
proposed a generalized and efficient cover generation procedure, adopted the influencing domains of nodes in the moving least
which is applicable for dealing with interfaces, inclusions and squares (MLS) interpolation when constructing the mathematical
discontinuities with complex geometry. Zheng and Xu (2014) cover and proposed the MLS-based NMM to better address the
proposed strategies for several specific issues that NMM may problems with large movement. Then, they adopted the MLS-based
encounter in simulation of crack propagation, including the rank NMM and proposed a so-called projection-contraction algorithm to
deficiency induced by the high-order cover functions, the integrals tackle the complementarity problem in the static growth of mul-
with singularity of 1/r (r indicates the distance to the crack tip), and tiple fractures (Zheng et al., 2015). Recently, Liu et al. (2018a,b)
the kinked cracks. A flat-top partition of unity (PU)-based NMM studied the micro/macro failure of rock by developing a Voronoi
was proposed by He et al. (2015) to alleviate the linear dependence element based-NMM. For stress wave propagation issues, Zhao
difficulty of traditional NMM. Recently, Yang et al. (2017) and Zheng et al. (2014) improved the performance of NMM in the simulation
and Yang (2017) developed a mass lumping scheme for NMM and of wave propagation in rock masses by importing Newmark system
other PU methods, which shows a more excellent behavior in dy- equations, edge-to-edge contact scheme and non-reflection
namic analysis compared with the conventional consistent mass boundary condition. Wu and Fan (2014) developed a time-
matrix since solving large-scale simultaneous algebraic equations dependent absorbing boundary condition for wave propagation
can be avoided. problems. Wei et al. (2018) also proposed some new boundary
For simulating fractures, Li et al. (2005a,b) and Gao and Cheng conditions for NMM to study the seismic response of geomechanics
(2010) developed an enriched meshless manifold method for 2D problems. Yang et al. (2018) developed boundary settings for the
crack modeling. Meanwhile, Ma et al. (2009) and An (2010) incor- seismic dynamic response analysis of rock masses in NMM. More-
porated the enriched functions of XFEM/GFEM into standard NMM over, Zhang et al. (2014, 2017, 2018) studied the thermo-mechanical
to simulate complex cracks. Zhao et al. (2012a) coupled NMM with fractures and transient heat conduction problems using NMM in
the distinct lattice spring model to simulate the dynamic failure of different solids.
rock masses. Wu and Wong (2013a,b, 2014), Wu et al. (2013) and NMM has been a promising numerical method for rock me-
Wong and Wu (2014) implemented NMM and studied rock frac- chanics in recent years due to its great advantages in theoretical
turing in many different circumstances (Fig. 4). Yang et al. (2014b) basement for continua-discontinua analysis. However, as a quasi-

Fig. 4. Simulation of the failure of rock samples using NMM: (a) Failure of Brazilian tensile disc test in pre-fractured sample (Wong and Wu, 2014); and (b) Cracking of rock
containing two inclusions (Wu and Wong, 2013b).
 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700 689

block-based model, its geometrical and topological operations, and and rigid wall were developed. Only normal contact force was
then its contact detection and operation, can be complicated, considered in the model. The maximum tensile stress criterion and
especially in 3D cases. Furthermore, NMM is generally suitable for Mohr-Coulomb criterion were adopted in PMM to study the brittle
the analysis in macroscopic scale, but not in microscopic scale. failure of rock. The link was taken as the basic failure component in
the model, and the directivity of the failure was discussed. Appli-
3. Particle-based numerical manifold method cation of PMM includes a preliminary study of the stress wave
propagation across joints, the spalling of rock bars (Fig. 6), and
The PNMM is a newly proposed extension of NMM for rock some other fracturing problems. Furthermore, a graphics process-
dynamics. The basic idea of PNMM is to incorporate the particle ing unit (GPU) parallelization and a coupling of PMM and NMM
concept into NMM. The motivation of this development is to were also performed, attempting to further improve the efficiency
simplify the geometrical Boolean operations and contact opera- of computation.
tions in NMM, as well as to better understand the heterogeneity of
rock materials and rock fractures.
3.2. Fundamental principles

3.1. Particle manifold method An improvement to PMM was later performed and consequently
the numerical model PNMM was proposed. This section briefly
The model originally proposed by Zhao et al. (2012a,b) and Sun presents some fundamental principles of PNMM. More details of
et al. (2013, 2014) was entitled particle manifold method (PMM) the components, formulations and implementation of the model
during its early stage. PMM replaced the polyhedron representation can be found in Li (2017) and Li et al. (2017).
of physical cover with a particle representation. The basic idea of PNMM inherits the dual-layer-cover system from NMM, i.e. the
this improvement is to reduce the complexity of the topological mathematical cover and physical cover. On each mathematical
operations between polygons in NMM. Considering that the phys- cover, a weight function 4i is defined to combine the interpolation
ical cover could be in general shapes due to the intersection be- functions from different physical covers, which satisfies
tween the mathematical cover and discontinuities (e.g. boundaries, X 9
material interfaces, and fractures), topological operations in NMM 4i ðxÞ ¼ 1 >
=
are usually complicated and time-consuming in practice, especially i
(1)
in 3D cases. For example, in Fig. 5, Zone I in polygon representation 4i ðxÞ  0 ðcx˛Pi Þ >
;
is the result of a Boolean operation ‘AND’ between the triangular 4i ðxÞ ¼ 0 ðcx;Pi Þ
simulation domain and the rectangular mathematical cover M.
Using the particle representation, Zone I is described by a group of where Pi is the ith mathematical cover. The physical cover is to
red particles located in M. Therefore, in generation of the physical provide the local approximation function by defining the cover
cover I (same as Zone I in geometry), the topological operation function ui:
between two polygons is simplified to the operation between
X
n
several points and a polygon. This polygon-to-polygon topological ui ¼ Tij ðxÞdij ¼ Tdi (2)
operation, sometimes called block cutting procedure in NMM, j¼1
could be more complicated when fractures are taken into
consideration. where n is the number of DOFs, T is the basis of the cover function,
The particle manifold element, as the basic element in PMM, and di is the vector of DOFs on the ith physical cover. Since a
was defined as the combination of the mathematical cover and manifold element is the overlap of neighboring physical covers, its
particles. A relationship termed ‘link’ was defined to describe the displacement field is generated by combing the cover functions of
continuous state between neighboring particles. PMM adopted a related physical covers using weight functions as
particle simplex integration scheme for numerical calculation.
Although the integration scheme is analytical, there could still exist X
m X
m

slight accuracy loss due to the particle representation of polygonal

ue ðxÞ ¼ 4i ðxÞui ðxÞ ¼ N i ðxÞdi ¼ N e de (3)
i¼1 i¼1
domains (Sun, 2012). A virtual integration model and a realistic
integration model were developed for homogeneous and inho- where ue is the displacement field of the manifold element e; m
mogeneous materials, respectively. The most noticeable improve- indicates the number of physical covers; Ni and Ne are the shape
ment of PMM compared to NMM was that the polygon-to-polygon functions on the ith physical cover and manifold element e,
contact was simplified to particle-to-particle contact, since the respectively; and de is the vector of DOFs on the manifold element
contact between particles was easier to be detected and computed. e. The generation of manifold elements, as the result of the dual-
The contact forces between particles as well as between particle layer-cover system, forms the first discretization in PNMM. With
this discretization, the global equation of PNMM for dynamic
analysis can be obtained in matrix form as

Kd þ M d€ ¼ F (4)

where K is the global stiffness matrix, d is the global vector of

unknowns, M is the global mass matrix, and F is the global vector of
equivalent loads. This governing equation is the same as that in
NMM, since particles have not yet been introduced by far.
An extra level of discretization is incorporated by dividing each
manifold element into a group of particles, as illustrated in Fig. 7. As
Fig. 5. Physical cover in PMM: Replacing the polygon representation with a particle the governing equation and DOFs are defined on manifold ele-
representation (Sun et al., 2013). ments, introduction of the particles does not bring in additional
690 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700

Fig. 6. The spalling of rock bar under impulse stress wave predicted by PMM (Sun et al., 2013).

Fig. 7. The dual-level discretization in PNMM (Li et al., 2018c).

DOFs and does not affect the form of the governing equation. conditions are satisfied at the same time: (1) the two particles are
However, the material properties, boundary conditions and body next to each other geometrically; (2) the two particles belong to the
forces are all assigned to individual particles independently. Parti- same block/object; and (3) there are no micro/macro fractures
cles in a manifold element are possible to have varying material between the two particles. In implementation, the Munjiza-NBS
properties and boundary conditions. For calculation of the manifold contact detection algorithm (Munjiza and Andrews, 1998) is uti-
element matrices, a particle integration scheme was proposed by lized for the generation of links. A link is the basic failure compo-
taking the particle centroids and areas as integration points and nent in PNMM, as that in PMM. The stress and strain of a link are
weights, respectively, as taken as the average stress and strain of the two particles it
connects:
Z p h
X
p
  c  X   i 
f ðxÞdA ¼ f xi Ai ¼ p f xci r 2i (5) sL ¼ ðs1 þ s2 Þ=2
i¼1 i¼1 (7)
A εL ¼ ðε1 þ ε2 Þ=2

where f(x) is the integrand, p is the number of particles, xci is the where sL and εL are the stress and strain tensors of the link,
coordinates of the centroid of the ith particle, Ai is the area of the ith respectively; s1 and ε1 are the stress and strain tensors of the first
particle, and ri is the radius of the ith particle. The particle inte- particle, respectively; and s2 and ε2 are the stress and strain tensors
gration scheme is a numerical integration technique, and it is of the second particle, respectively. For rock dynamics issues, the
suitable for both convex and concave integration domains and any Johnson-Holmquist-Beissel (JHB) model (Johnson et al., 2003) is
integrands, including polynomial, exponential, and trigonometric chosen as the strength criterion to reproduce the rate-dependent
functions (Li, 2017). Using the particle integration scheme, the behaviors of rock:
global matrices in the governing equation could be assembled.
Then, the mechanical fields of manifold elements are obtained by sc ¼ s0 ð1 þ C ln_ε*Þ (8)
solving the equation, and the mechanical results of each particle
can be simply derived as where sc is the dynamic strength at the strain rate of ε_ *; s0 is the
      strength at ε_ * ¼ 1; and C is the dimensionless strain rate constant.
ui ¼ ue xci ; εi ¼ εe xci ; si ¼ se xci (6) More details of the implementation of JHB model in PNMM and the
determination process of JHB parameters for rock materials can be
where ui, εi and si are the displacement, strain and stress of the ith found in Ma and An (2008) and Li et al. (2017). The strength cri-
particle in the manifold element e, respectively; and ue, εe and se terion is applied on each link, and once the stress of a link reaches
are respectively the displacement, strain and stress of the manifold the dynamic strength from the criterion, the link is supposed to be
element e. failed, representing that a microcrack is generated. In a continuous
Among particles in a continuum, links are defined as the model, it could be proven that any two particles within the model
continuous status between neighboring particles. A link is gener- could be connected by either one or more links. When there are
ated between any two particles as long as the following three failed links generated in a manifold element at a time step in
 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700 691

calculation, the topological relation between particles would be defined between adjacent particles, which are distinctly
redetected. And if disconnected particles are found to separate different from other particle-based methods. Therefore,
particles into more than one group, the manifold element would be particles in a same element could be regarded as point
subdivided accordingly, representing that the fracture has propa- collocation, and the overlap between particles should have
gated across the manifold element. A cover function enrichment is no physical meaning (Li et al., 2017).
implemented around the fracture tip to consider the singular fields. (4) Generate links. The Munjiza-NBS contact detection algo-
The contact operation in PMM is kept, i.e. the particle-to- rithm (Munjiza and Andrews, 1998) is implemented to detect
particle and particle-to-plane contacts are defined respectively. the pairs of neighboring particles in PNMM and the links are
Particles on the surface of different continuums/blocks may form a generated accordingly. Details of this procedure are available
pair of particle-to-particle contacts when they are adjacent to each in Li (2017).
other. The particle-to-plane contacts are to simulate the interaction (5) Generate blocks. This is to detect how many blocks are
between deformable bodies and rigid static/moving walls or involved in the model. A pair of neighboring particles is
infinite planes. The difference between a contact and a link is that connected by a link. A block is constituted of a group of
there is no force defined on the link whereas the contact force is particles, where any two of them could be connected
applied. In the current version of PNMM, only normal contact force through numbers of links. A so-called seed filling method is
is defined and conducted. Although the direction of a pair of contact adopted to accomplish this task (Sun, 2012; Li, 2017).
is determined by the position of two particles at particle scale, (6) Detect pairs of contacts.
PNMM accumulates pairs of contacts to simulate the complex (7) Apply body forces, external loads, and boundary conditions.
block-to-block contact at macro-scale, and the contact force be- These parameters are defined on particles and applied to the
tween blocks is the sum of contact forces between particles, as element matrices.
illustrated in Fig. 8. PNMM implements the same open-close iter- (8) Generate element matrices using the particle integration
ation procedure as NMM (Liu et al., 2018c) to prevent the pene- scheme.
tration between blocks. It should be noted that although only (9) Assemble global matrices.
normal contact is considered in PNMM, the model still gains the (10) Solve global equation. The preconditioned conjugate
ability to simulate shear failure, since the failure is defined on the gradient (PCG) method is implemented to solve the global
link instead of the contact. equation, which is a system of linear equations.
The flowchart of PNMM is illustrated in Fig. 9 and the calculation (11) Derive DOF results on manifold elements from the global
steps are concluded as follows: vector of unknowns, which are solved in the previous step.
(12) Obtain particle mechanical results from the mechanical fields
(1) Input the model and generate mathematical covers. The of a manifold element straightforwardly.
model is created in other software and read by PNMM from a (13) Obtain link mechanical results from the two particles it
text file. The text file imported into PNMM includes the connects as the average value.
model geometry information, material properties, and some (14) Apply the JHB criterion. The JHB model is implemented in
other setting variables. PNMM and applied on each link at every time step. Once the
(2) Generate manifold elements. The generation of manifold JHB criterion is met, the status of the link will be set to be
elements is based on the topological operation between the failed. A group of material constants in the criterion need to
imported model and mathematical covers. be determined before the simulation.
(3) Generate particles. Each manifold element is first divided (15) Remove failed links, and redetect connectivity between
into several inner triangular elements. Then, one particle is particles. This task is accomplished by the seed filling
generated in each inner triangular element. The center of the method as well.
particle is the centroid of the inner triangular element. The (16) Generate new manifold element and re-group particles.
area of the particle is equal to the area of the inner triangular Additional manifold elements need to be generated when
element. In such a way, the sum of particle areas remains fractures have propagated through an element.
equal to the area of the polygonal element. It is common to (17) Post-process. PNMM writes the simulation results into an
find adjacent particles overlapped due to the limitation of external text file, which will be later processed by other post-
geometry. However, particles in a same manifold element are process software.
mainly used to carry material parameters and serve as the
numerical integration points. There is no contact force
3.3. Applications

The application of PNMM mainly focuses on the dynamic frac-

turing of rock. The proposed PNMM was first validated by modeling
some fundamental problems, including the cantilever beam, Bra-
zilian disc test, and rock blasting under dynamic loading (Li et al.,
2017). Moreover, stress wave propagation is an important issue in
studying the dynamic fracturing of rock. The example illustrated in
Fig. 10 presents the wave propagation in a rock cavern which is
semi-circle in shape. The propagated wave was induced by an ex-
plosion load uniformly applied on the surface of the rock cavern.
Simulation results showed that the wave arrives at the upper
bound of the model at the time of 9.72 ms, being in good agreement
with the theoretical result of 9.61 ms. Three monitoring points
were set in the model. The time-displacement results of the three
monitoring points obtained by PNMM agreed well with those
Fig. 8. From particle-to-particle contact to block-to-block contact. simulated by ABAQUS (Dassault Systèmes, 2017). Later, the spalling
692 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700
Fig. 9. The flowchart of PNMM.
 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700 693

Fig. 10. The stress wave propagation in a rock cavern: (a) Numerical model; (b) Simulated vertical displacement results at t ¼ 10 ms (unit: m); and (c) Displacement histories at
monitoring points e comparison with FEM results.

of rock bars under different loading rates and different types of wave is applied, a spalling zone rather than a single spalling frac-
triangular compression waves were simulated, as shown in Fig. 11 ture will be generated. The spalling process in plate impact test
(Li et al., 2018d). It was found that the spalling pattern is closely with different impact velocities and different flyer sizes were also
related to the type of the wave applied on the bar. When a sawtooth studied (Li, 2017; Li et al., 2018d). Two flyers were adopted in the
or reverse sawtooth wave was imposed, the second spall fracture test, a long flyer with the same length as the target and a short flyer
would possibly be created on the first spall piece or the remaining with half the length of the target (Fig. 12). In the long flyer test,
part of the bar; whereas in the case where a symmetrical triangular spalling fractures were generated by the reflected stress in a narrow
694 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700

Fig. 11. The spalling of rock bar under different types of triangular compression waves: (a) Reverse sawtooth compression wave; (b) Sawtooth compression wave; and (c) Sym-
metrical triangular compression wave (Li et al., 2018d).

Fig. 12. The plate impact test with (a) long flyer (Li et al., 2018d) and (b) short flyer.

area near the center of the target. The length of the fractured area rockburst. The applied dynamic disturbance was in the form of an
was almost the same as the length of the target. Then, spalling impulse function. Numerical results revealed that if the vertical and
fractures were extended to the left and right boundaries of the horizontal in situ stresses are close to each other, the surface of
target, and the target was consequently separated into two parts, tunnel will be under the state of compression. A compressive in situ
where a marked difference between the flying speeds existed. In stress field helped to offset the reflected tensile stress wave;
the short flyer test, spalling fractures were generated by the re- however, spalling could still occur when the peak value of the dy-
flected stress in a narrow area near the center of the target as well; namic disturbance was high enough. Spalling fractures that prop-
however, the fracturing zone was shorter than the flyer. Then, some agated to the tunnel formed the rockburst with the rock ejection
longitudinal fractures were generated from the spalling zone to the from the surface. Other fractures remaining in the rock mass did not
lower bound of the target, creating several spalling pieces from the enhance the rockburst but could be a potential hazard to the safety
target. The speed of these spalling pieces was non-uniform at their of the tunnel in the following use. A parametric study was con-
creation but became uniform with the increase of the simulation ducted to discuss the effect of in situ stresses on the rockburst of
time. There were also some fractures originating from the upper tunnel, as shown in Fig. 13. In the last two cases, the lateral pressure
bound of the target, due to the mismatch between the length of the coefficient was increased to 10, which had exceeded the typical
flyer and target. Based on the spalling phenomenon in rock, the value range in practice, but it helped to reveal the mechanism of
rockburst of tunnel induced by static in situ stress and far-field rockburst under coupled in situ stress and dynamic disturbance
dynamic disturbance was further simulated in Li et al. (2018a). and made our results comparable to those of Zhu et al. (2010).
This simulation was divided into two stages. In the first stage, static Simulation results showed that in these cases, the horizontal sur-
in situ stresses were imposed on the model to obtain the initial faces and surrounding regions of the tunnel were initially under the
stress state. Then, a dynamic disturbance was uniformly imposed state of tension instead. The superposition between the initial
on the left boundary of the model to trigger the spalling and tensile stress and the reflected tensile stress weakened the ability

Fig. 13. The rockburst of tunnels subjected to a same dynamic disturbance and different in situ horizontal stresses (PH) and vertical stresses (PV) (enlarged view around the tunnel):
(a) PH ¼ 20 MPa, PV ¼ 10 MPa; (b) PH ¼ 10 MPa, PV ¼ 1 MPa; and (c) Case 5 in Li et al. (2018d), PH ¼ 20 MPa, PV ¼ 2 MPa.
 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700 695

to withstand the dynamic disturbance, therefore severer rockbursts range of cutting depth at which the mode of rock scratching is in
occurred. It is concluded that the most dangerous situation for deep the transition from ductile to brittle. The transitional cutting depth
tunnels is that there is a large difference between the horizontal range could be estimated from the result of mechanical specific
and vertical in situ stresses and the dynamic disturbance comes energy (MSE). Besides, a detailed parametric study was performed
from the direction of higher in situ stress. Of course, it would also by a series of PNMM simulations to investigate the effect of oper-
be possible to have a very large difference between the horizontal ational parameters of the cutter, including the cutting depth, cut-
and vertical in situ stresses caused by other activities instead of sole ting speed, and rake angle. The effect of cutting depth was divided
geological conditions. into three phases: the value of MSE decreases rapidly when the
Li et al. (2018e) used PNMM to simulate the rock scratch tests. cutting depth is shallow, remains approximately constant when the
Three different failure patterns, i.e. brittle failure, ductile failure, cutting depth is intermediate, and decreases nonlinearly at an in-
and brittle-ductile combined failure, under decreasing cutting termediate rate in deep cuts. The effect of cutter rake angle was
depths were successfully modeled (Fig. 14). It is found that there is a significant on cutting force but moderate on MSE, and an actual

Fig. 14. Typical failure patterns in rock scratch test: (a) Ductile failure at shallow cut; (b) Brittle-ductile failure at intermediate cut; and (c) Brittle failure at deep cut (after Li et al.,
2018e).
696 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700

cutting depth was found to be noticeably greater than that when PNMM. Compared with the block-DEM, e.g. universal distinct
the cutter has a large rake angle, leading to a significant difference element code (UDEC) and 3D distinct element code (3DEC), PNMM
between the cutting force and MSE. The shortcoming of this nu- has an advantage that it is easier to have the fracture propagation
merical study was that the cutting speed was set to be 4 m/s, driven into blocks due to the existence of internal particles. This
apparently higher than that in an experimental test, which is advantage also applies when comparing PNMM with FDEM, espe-
usually in the order of mm/s. The reason is to shorten the scratching cially the widely used code Y-Geo (Lisjak and Grasselli, 2014).
process and reduce the computation time to a practical level. The However, compared with previously mentioned numerical models,
same problem had been encountered by Jaime et al. (2015) in their PNMM still lacks improvement in the following aspects. First,
FEM analysis and we adopted the same cutting speed as them. The PNMM is currently still a 2D model, which limits its application to
cutting speed was found to greatly affect the cutting efficiency since many problems. Second, application of PNMM is still limited, since
rock had a much higher strength at such high strain rates. He and it fails to simulate heats, fluids, and coupled problems. Third, the
Xu (2016) observed experimentally that the effects of cutting efficiency of PNMM should be further improved by incorporating
speed can be regarded to be negligible for realistic cutting speeds. parallel computation.
We suggest that it is necessary to apply a more efficient numerical Based on the development of PNMM and simulation results
model to this simulation. obtained over the past years, the following recommendations for
future work are outlined:
3.4. Discussion
(1) Investigating the heterogeneity of rock materials. The het-
Since PNMM is developed by incorporating the particle concept erogeneity could be defined by either a random distribution
into NMM, it is reasonable to be compared it with other particle- of material properties among particles or a meso-scale
based models, e.g. the DEM (Potyondy and Cundall, 2004), SPH structure. In the second scenario, the geometry information
(Lucy, 1977), PD (Rabczuk and Ren, 2017), LM (Zhao et al., 2011) and of aggregates needs to be provided first. Then, particles
reproducing kernel particle method (RKPM) (Liu et al., 1995). located in aggregates are assigned with different material
However, particles in PNMM are in fact based on a quite different parameters. This work could be an important application of
concept. Serving as an extension and improvement to NMM, PNMM PNMM in the future. In the next phase, a PNMM model
has the same theoretical foundation and global governing equation should be able to be generated from a computed tomography
as NMM. In PNMM, the DOFs are defined on manifold elements (CT) scanning image. The effect of the varying particle size
rather than particles. The element matrices are to be assembled and and particle allocation should also be studied in the scope of
the mechanical fields of elements are to be solved from the global this work.
equation. Recalling that the link between adjacent particles only (2) Enhancing the computational efficiency of PNMM by devel-
presents the continuous status and carries no additional force, oping a parallelized version. Both central processing unit
particles in a continuum do not interact with each other, which can (CPU)-based and GPU-based technologies are possibly
distinguish PNMM from other particle methods. Particles in PNMM adopted. The first attempt could be made on solving the
can be regarded as a point collocation under most circumstances. global equation.
The force between particles is only defined at the contact between (3) Developing an explicitly coupled method using PNMM and
different continuums or blocks on their surfaces. Due to this char- NMM. A major difference between PNMM and NMM is the
acteristic, introduction of particles as well as links does not bring in introduction of particles. It is possible to introduce particles
many micro-parameters as other methods. Macro-mechanical pa- as the second level of discretization in a part of the model,
rameters are assigned to particles as those assigned to elements in and conducts only the first discretization in the rest portion
NMM. Parameters at the contact are similar to NMM as well, since of the model with less interest, e.g. in far field, in the domain
the only difference is that contact is defined between particles with small deformation, in the domain where no fracture and
instead of blocks and the same open-close iteration is utilized. For contact occurs.
fracturing analysis, JHB parameters are introduced on the links in (4) Extending the PNMM code to 3D cases. Some formulae
order to take the rate-dependent behavior of rock into consider- proposed for 3D PMM in Sun (2012) could be introduced. The
ation. The determination of JHB parameters could be found in the extension of the proposed particle integration scheme to 3D
literature (Li et al., 2017). In summary, particles in PNMM are cases is straightforward. The 3D PNMM could be applied to
functioned in the following aspects. First, particles carrying pa- the problems that do not obey the plane strain and plane
rameters assist in simulating the heterogeneity of rock materials. stress assumptions, e.g. the projectile penetration in rock
Second, the numerical integration scheme is implemented by par- plates.
ticles. Third, fractures could be initiated and propagate on the (5) Incorporating thermal and fluid components into PNMM to
particle level. Finally, the contacts between different blocks are investigate the coupled problems, which have been
conducted by particles. increasingly important in rock engineering.
Compared with NMM, PNMM simplifies the contact operation (6) Application of PNMM could be extended to the stress wave
between blocks, improves the flexibility in initiating and deter- propagation in jointed rock masses, which is also an impor-
mining the propagation path of fractures, and gains the ability to tant topic in rock dynamics.
simulate the heterogeneity of rock materials. Compared with the
particle-DEM, e.g. particle flow code (PFC) (Potyondy and Cundall, 4. Concluding remarks
2004), PNMM is a continumm-discontinumm coupled method,
which is supposed to provide a better solution to continuous Over the last decade, PNMM has emerged as a promising nu-
problems. Moreover, PNMM does not have the micro-parameters merical tool for rock dynamics. PNMM inherits the cover system
on particles that need to be calibrated prior to the simulation as from NMM and introduces a dual-level discretization using parti-
PFC does. However, PNMM would probably have a lower accuracy cles. Compared with NMM, PNMM simplifies the contact operation
than PFC if their models have the same number of particles, since between blocks, improves the flexibility in initiating and deter-
the DOFs in PNMM are defined on elements instead of particles. mining the propagation path of fractures, and gains the ability to
Besides, PFC is apparently more suitable for granular materials than simulate the heterogeneity of rock materials. Compared with PMM,
 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700 697

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700 X. Li, J. Zhao / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 11 (2019) 684e700

Dr. Xing Li is Associate Professor in the School of Civil degree in the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash
Engineering at Southeast University, China since 2018. He University, Australia in 2017. His research interests cover
received his BSc and MSc degrees in Mechanics at Xi’an the dynamic rock fracturing, numerical manifold method,
Jiaotong University, China in 2011 and 2013, respectively. and discrete element method.
Xing conducted his doctoral research in Rock Mechanics at
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) of
Switzerland during 2013e2015, and obtained his PhD