Neutrosophic Function for Assessing the Scale Effect of the Rock Joint Surface Roughness

Book excerpt: A new investigation method is proposed for recording large-sized joint profiles and making statistical analyses of the joint roughness coefficient (JRC) values of the 10–300 cm sized profiles. )e mechanical hand profilograph is used for joint roughness measurement due to its advantage of easy operation and high accuracy in recording joint traces. Based on the proposed method, it provides sufficient samples from various positions on the large joint profile, which allows the statistical evaluation of JRC values. A neutrosophic number (NN) is employed for revealing determinate and/or indeterminate information as it consists of determinate and indeterminate parts. Due to the uncertainty of JRC in the real world, NN is chosen to represent the JRC value, which is not only random but also a fuzzy indefinite parameter. The neutrosophic function is used to analyze and express the scale effect of joint surface roughness, and its derivative is used to describe the changing trend of the scale effect.