Quantitative Evaluation of Roughness with a 2D Digital Instrument

Roughness of discontinuities, when clean and unfilled, has a significant impact on rock joint mechanical behaviour and, as a consequence, of rock masses. The need to solve ambitious rock mechanics problems encouraged research to study shear mechanism acting at the joint level and to produce sound models to reproduce it. In this framework, roughness measurement allows to gather information about shear strength of rock joints at an acceptable cost.