THE FRACTAL CHARACTER OF FRACTURE SPACING AND RQD

Fracturing and fragmentation processes occur on all scales and, hence, may be described in terms of fractals. We examined the fractal dimensions of discontinuity spacing measurements in a fractured rock mass and observed a relation between the fractal dimension and the quality of the rock mass in terms of RQD. RQD tends to increase with a decrease in fractal dimension for a given scanline length. Thus a relatively more-competent fractured rock mass will tend to have a lower fractal dimension and vice versa.