Research on the Spacing of Structural Plane Used in Rock Mass Structure Classification

Great achievements have been made in rock mass structure research to evaluate engineering properties of rock mass in the engineering geology field. In fact, rock mass structure can not only indicate the quantity of structural planes (discontinuities) and size of rock blocks, but also indicate the integrity and mechanical properties of the rock mass. More and more attention has been paid to rock mass quality classification by using rock mass structure. During the past 40 years, rock mass structure research has been carried out by many scholars, and various standards of rock mass structure classification have been proposed in different industries of different countries. In these standards, the most widely used index was the spacing of structural plane. However, it is a pity that the method of determining the spacing value is not unified in different standards, therefore, the structure type of a rock mass may be different according to different standard. But which kind of method to determine the spacing value is most reasonable? It becomes an important problem to be solved. In this paper, rational method of determining the spacing of structural planes is demonstrated based on lots of statistical data in dam abutment rock mass of one large-scale hydroelectric project in Southwest China.