A Joint represents an interface along which movement can take place. A Joint is assigned strength and stiffness properties. Relative movement of the two sides of a joint may be elastic, or inelastic (if the shear strength of the joint is exceeded by the shear stress).
Joints can represent:
structural discontinuities in a rock mass
interfaces between support (e.g. liners, piles, geosynthetics) and rock or soil
any other type of sliding interface which may occur in a geotechnical project
There are various ways of modeling Joints in a Phase2 analysis:
Joint Boundary - a Joint can be explicitly modeled as a Joint boundary in Phase2. A Joint boundary is created with the Add Joint option.
Structural Interface Boundary - a Structural Interface boundary allows you to model support such as piles or geosynthetics, which can have a sliding interface on BOTH sides of the support element. A Joint will automatically be created on BOTH sides of the support element, when you define a Structural Interface boundary. See the Structural Interface Overview topic for more information.
Composite Liner with Joint - with the Composite Liner option, you may include a Joint between layers of the composite liner. See the Composite Liner Overview topic.
Joint Network - a network of joint boundaries can be created with the Joint Network option.
In all of the above modeling scenarios, the Joint properties (e.g. strength, stiffness) are defined with the Define Joint Properties option.
NOTE: Ubiquitous Joints can be included in Strength Factor calculations of a rock mass. However, this is strictly a post-analysis feature available in the Phase2 Interpret program. Ubiquitous Joints is NOT an option in the Phase2 Model program.