Mr William J. Darlington

Title: Postgraduate Student

Contact Information:

E-mail:	william.darlington@eng.monash.edu.au
Phone:	+61 3 9905 4261
Fax:	+61 3 9905 4944
Room:	G08
Building:	69
Campus:	Clayton

Links:

Rock Mechanics Laboratory – Testing Equipment

Teaching Commitments:

• ENG1020 Tutor
• MCD4190 Tutor
• CIV2207 Tutor

Qualifications:

• BEng (Hons) (Civil), Monash University (Clayton), 2006
• BCom, Monash University (Clayton), 2006

Research:

PhD Project - Jointed Rock Mass Strength and Applications to Large Open Pit Mining

Currently, the engineering behaviour of rock slopes at extreme depth is not thoroughly understood. Recently there has been an increase in the planned development of large open pit mines to depths of 1 km, already some current mines have reached these depths. These excavations pose new challengers for geotechnical engineers. Despite significant advances in the study of rock mass behaviour over the past three decades the understanding of critical mechanisms and processes surrounding these projects remains limited. These include: stress redistribution, the motion of fluids in fractured rocks, modes of deformation and failure in steep slopes, fluid-rock interaction, interaction between rock and reinforcing materials, the failure of intact rock bridges, and our ability to both establish material properties and project system responses at the field scale. This project aims at researching the final two of these issues.

The main aims of the project are as follows:
• Develop a relationship between measurable joint/fracture properties and strength of laboratory scale rock samples (Laboratory Work);

• Modify existing failure criterion to include measurable qualities of rock joints in order to initially establish laboratory rock strength, and subsequently the large scale rock mass strength for an open pit mine (Model Development and Numerical Modeling);

• Explore the effect of stress on the micro structure of rock (Laboratory Work);

• Develop a relationship between laboratory scale specimen properties and larger scale specimen properties (Laboratory Work); and

• Explore the process of failure and fracture development across intact rock bridges and applying these findings to open pit mine design (Laboratory Work and Numerical Modeling).

Publications:

1. Darlington, W.J., Ranjith, P.G., Choi, S.K. and Kodikara, J. (2008) The Acoustic Emission Response of Intact Quartzite Under Uniaxial Compression, 1st Southern Hemisphere International Rock Mechanics Symposium, Perth, Australia.

2. Ranjith, P.G., and Darlington, W. (2007) Nonlinear single-phase flow in real rock joints, Water Resour. Res., 43.