Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 9 (2017) 702e708

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Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
journal homepage: www.rockgeotech.org

Full Length Article

Determination of geological strength index of jointed rock mass based

on image processing
Kunui Hong a, *, Eunchol Han b, Kwangsong Kang a
a
Faculty of Mining Engineering, Kim Chaek University of Technology, Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
b
School of Engineering and Science, Kim Chaek University of Technology, Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The geological strength index (GSI) system, widely used for the design and practice of mining process, is
Received 6 September 2016 a unique rock mass classification system related to the rock mass strength and deformation parameters
Received in revised form based on the generalized Hoek-Brown and Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria. The GSI can be estimated using
20 April 2017
standard chart and field observations of rock mass blockiness and discontinuity surface conditions. The
Accepted 10 May 2017
Available online 10 July 2017
GSI value gives a numerical representation of the overall geotechnical quality of the rock mass. In this
study, we propose a method to determine the GSI quantitatively using photographic images of in situ
jointed rock mass with image processing technology, fractal theory and artificial neural network (ANN).
Keywords:
Jointed rock mass
We employ the GSI system to characterize the jointed rock mass around the working in a coal mine. The
Geological strength index (GSI) relative error between the proposed value and the given value in the GSI chart is less than 3.6%.
Image processing Ó 2017 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Fractal dimension Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
Artificial neural network (ANN) licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction reducing inadvertent errors and inconsistencies by inexperienced

Generally, knowledge on the mechanical properties of rock mass
is a prerequisite for the numerical simulation and the design of the
underground structure, opening-up of mineral deposits and mining
processes.
Since the early 1990s, many scholars (e.g. Hoek and Brown,
1997; Hoek et al., 2005, 2008, 2013; Hoek and Marinos, 2007)
have proposed a variety of methods to determine the strength and
deformation parameters of rock mass using geological strength
index (GSI). The standard GSI chart considers qualitatively the
surface condition and blockiness of a rock mass, and is used to
estimate a value between 0 and 100 representing the overall
geotechnical quality of the rock mass (Fig. 1). The GSI approach has
been modified over the years and applied to characterizing the
mechanical properties of rock mass by many authors (e.g. Sonmez
and Ulusay, 1999; Cai et al., 2004, 2007; Sonmez et al., 2004;
Bridean, 2005; Marinos et al., 2006).
The best outcomes can be achieved only by collaboration be-
tween experienced engineering geologists and geotechnical engi-
neers. Quantifying estimates of GSI may provide a means of
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hkui66107@star-co.net.kp (K. Hong).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
practitioners in classifying a rock mass.
Bieniawski (1989) and Hoek and Brown (1997) suggested that
GSI can be related to the modified rock mass quality index Q and
rock mass rating (RMR), respectively. A recent paper by Hoek et al.
(2013) proposed a method for quantifying GSI using the rock
quality designation (RQD), the joint condition rating of the RMR
system, and the joint condition factor (JCond89) by Bieniawski
(1989). Russo (2009) suggested a new approach for quantitative
assessment of the GSI (Hoek et al., 1995) by means of the basic input
parameters for the determination of the rock mass index (RMI),
such as the elementary block volume and the joint conditions. A
recent paper by Bertuzzi et al. (2016) provided data from four
different rock masses to extend the case history proposed by Hoek
et al. (2013). The correlation between the GSI qualitatively assessed
from the standard GSI chart and the quantified GSI was found to be
fair for the datasets from the four rock masses.
Akin (2013) estimated the GSI value using the back analysis
method with shear strength parameters of a failure surface in
heavily jointed rock masses on a slope. The shear strength pa-
rameters of a failure surface under a specific normal stress can be
determined using the material constants of the Hoek-Brown failure
criterion (mb and s) as a function of the GSI value. Also, Tajdus
(2010) proposed a back analysis method of the surface subsi-
dence, which is based on the uniaxial compressive strength Rc of
rock samples, as well as mining and geological conditions, to

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2017.05.001
1674-7755 Ó 2017 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 K. Hong et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 9 (2017) 702e708
Fig. 1. Chart for determining GSI of jointed rock mass (Hoek and Brown, 1997).
determine the GSI values of a rock mass disturbed by underground
exploitation.
In recent years, several authors such as Han et al. (2014), Poulsen
et al. (2015) and Wang et al. (2015a) have also suggested many
methods to determine the strength and deformation parameters of
rock mass using GSI. All of the above-mentioned papers focused on
quantifying the GSI chart to facilitate use of the system especially
by inexperienced practitioners.
Many researchers (e.g. Crosta, 1997; Castleman, 2002;
Hadjigeorgiou et al., 2003; Lemy and Hadjigeorgiou, 2003; Lato
et al., 2009) have investigated digital face mapping as a practical
tool to characterize rock masses, which can significantly reduce the
time required in the field and avoid exposure to potentially unsafe
conditions.
The digital rock mass rating (DRMR) developed by Monte (2004)
uses basic image processing procedures and calculations to esti-
mate a classification rating from digital images of rock masses. The
rating system incorporates fracture information collected from a
discontinuity trace map (e.g. length, spacing, large-scale, rough-
ness, rock bridge percentage, and block volume).
703
In this paper, we propose a method to quantitatively determine
the GSI by first detecting the joints in two-dimensional (2D) pho-
tographs of a rock mass surface using the image processing tech-
nology, then determining the fractal dimension, and finally
predicting the GSI using artificial neural network (ANN). The
applicability of the method proposed is verified through stability
analysis of the working in a coal mine.
2. Joint detection on the rock mass surface using image
processing
Fig. 2 shows the schematic flowchart for detecting joints on the
rock mass surface via image processing. The detailed steps for joint
detection on the rock mass surface are described as follows.
(1) Converting the color image of rock mass to black and white
one
To detect the joints on the image of jointed rock mass, the
contrast of the image should be analyzed. We convert the natural
704 K. Hong et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 9 (2017) 702e708

8 9
>
> 1 1 1 >
>
> 0 0 >>
>
>
> 52 26 52 >
>
>
> >
>
>
> 1 3 1 3 1 >>
>
> >
>
>
> >
>
> 52 52 13 52 52 >
>
>
>
< >
=
1 1 1 1 1
Hð5; 5Þ ¼ (3)
> 26
> 13 13 13 26 >
>
>
> >
>
>
> 1 1 >>
>
> 3 1 3 >
>
>
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> 52
> 52 13 52 52 >
>
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>
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>
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> 1 1 1 >
>
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: 0 0 ;>
52 26 52
8 9
< 1 1 1 =
Hð3; 3Þ ¼ 1 8 1 (4)
: ;
1 1 1

(3) Binary encoding

To detect the emphasized joints, a binary encoding is conducted

by discrimination analysis, so that the joints and background of the
image are separated from each other.
Because the brightness distributions of different rock masses
and joints in images are varied, we perform a binary encoding by
discrimination analysis to determine the threshold that rationally
separates pixels into two types, based on the concentration histo-
gram. We separate image of rock masses into joint and background
pixels by introducing the following group separation coefficient
h(k) as a measure of evaluating whether the threshold fixed is
suitable or not:

s2B ðkÞ
hðkÞ ¼ (5)
s2T
Fig. 2. Schematic flowchart for detecting joints on the rock mass surface.
where

9
color image to black and white one using the gray level conversion ½mT uðkÞ  mðkÞ2 >
s2B ðkÞ ¼  >>
function as follows (Castleman, 2002): uðkÞ 1  u ðkÞ >
2 =
(6)
L1 h
X i >
>
gðx; yÞ ¼ T½f ðx; yÞ ¼ ½Rðx; yÞ þ Gðx; yÞ þ Bðx; yÞ=3 (1) >
>
s2T ¼ ði  mT Þ2 Pi ;
i¼0
where g(x,y) is the output black and white image; f(x,y) is the input
color image; T is the operator on the f(x,y); R(x,y), G(x,y) and B(x,y)
ni X
L1 X
L1 X
L1
are the RGB components of color image. Pi ¼ ; mT ¼ ðiPi Þ; uðkÞ ¼ Pi ; mðkÞ ¼ ðiPi Þ (7)
N i¼0 i¼0 i¼0
(2) Smoothing and sharpening
where N is the number of the whole pixels, L is the number of gray
To emphasize the joints, the image needs to be smoothed and levels, Pi is the density function, and ni is the number of pixels
sharpened using the corresponding masks. Smoothing and sharp- within the i-th level.
ening can be performed by image enhancement technique using From Eqs. (5)e(7), we first calculate s2B ðkÞ for all k ranging from 1
following equation (William, 2007): to L, to find the level k, at which s2B ðkÞ is maximized. Then, the
maximum s2B ðkÞ is used as a threshold for binary encoding.
ZþN ZþN
g 0 ðx; yÞ ¼ gðx; hÞHðx  x; y  hÞdxdh (2) (4) Noise removal
N N
An image may be influenced by noise and interference from
where g 0 ðx; yÞ is the output smoothed or sharpened image, gðx; hÞ is several sources, including electrical sensor noise, photographic
the input smoothed or sharpened image, and Hðx  x; y  hÞ is the grain noise and especially blast-induced cracks. Therefore, corro-
mask for smoothing or sharpening. sion and swelling operations in automatic and manual procedures
In Eq. (2), we need to choose the impulse response H with low- must be performed for the binary images in order to remove un-
pass or high-pass characteristics, respectively, for smoothing and necessary noise which may cause errors in joint detection. Partic-
sharpening. In detail, we use the common 5  5 low-pass and 3  3 ularly, the manual procedure removes the blast-induced cracks on
high-pass masks for smoothing and sharpening purpose, which are the joint trace maps, while comparing the results of automatic
defined by detection with those of in situ survey.
 K. Hong et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 9 (2017) 702e708
(5) Detection of the joints
After removing the unnecessary noise, we detect the joints
remained on the binary image.
Generally, edge and line locations on the binary track map can
be easily found from the distribution of white pixels under black
background. For implementation, we use two major classes of
specific edge and line detection: first- and second-order de-
rivatives. The details are explained in William (2007).
Here, we automatically collect properties of the joint set, such as
trace length, joint intensity, joint spacing and roughness, from the
discontinuity trace maps for 4 sides (left and right walls, face and
roof) in underground mine working. However, in the middle sec-
tion of the existing operation working, which has already been
driven, we collect the properties for only three sides (left and right
walls, and roof).
3. Fractal property of joints on rock mass surface
In recent years, many researchers including Jiang et al. (2006)
and Alameda-Hernandez et al. (2014) investigated the methods
for determining joint roughness coefficient (JRC) on the rock mass
surface using the following parameters derived from digitized
profiles: fractal dimension (D), first-derivative root-mean-square
(Z2), and roughness profile index or profile sinuosity (RP).
Odling (1994), Fardin et al. (2004), Nazarov and Nazarova
(2008), Wnuk and Yavari (2008), and Wang et al. (2015b) pro-
posed the correlations between the fractal dimension and joint
properties on the rock mass surface, such as JRC and roughness
exponent of fracture surfaces.
On the basis of above researches, joints in rock masses may be
treated in some cases as statistically self-similar (fractal prop-
erty), and therefore can be characterized using their fractal
dimension.
The fractal dimension of a 2D rock mass surface can be calcu-
lated with the following equation (Kulatilake et al., 1997):
PN
i ¼ 1 ½log10 Nðri Þlog10 ri 
D ¼ PN  2 
i ¼ 1 log10 ri
where ri is the length of section, and N(ri) is the number of joints in
lattice network with length of section ri.
Since joints of rock mass surface generally lie on a 2D plane, it
is natural to consider the problem using 2D model of fractal
dimension, rather than three-dimensional (3D) model. When
determining the fractal dimension for joint on rock mass surface,
the study area is subsequently subdivided by mesh, the size of
which is chosen between 1/64 and 1/2 along the column and
row.
We first divide the image into 2n (n ¼ 0e6) for detecting joints of
standard surfaces according to the rock mass classification given by
Hoek and Brown (1997), then count the number of joints by size of
lattice network, and finally calculate the fractal dimension of 6
types of standard surfaces for rock masses. The fractal dimensions
are listed in Table 1.
As shown in Table 1, we can find that the 2nd to 6th types of
standard surfaces of rock masses have clearly 2D fractal di-
mensions. The first type of standard surface, however, has fractal
dimension of approximately 0.99, which does not belong to 2D
surface. This is due to that the first type of standard surface pos-
sesses 1e2 groups of joint sets. This may be a very important issue.
Hence Table 1 can be used as an alternative tool that enables to
quantify standard rock masses in GSI chart given by Hoek and
Brown (1997).
705
Table 1
Fractal dimensions according to rock mass classification by Hoek and Brown
(1997).
Standard surface of rock mass Fractal dimension
1st type 0.99237
2nd type 1.36661
3rd type 1.51057
4th type 1.68454
5th type 1.71558
6th type 1.59083
4. Prediction of the GSI by ANN
The development of ANN started as an attempt to understand
the operation of the human brain and mimic its assessment capa-
bilities, in other words, to be able to decide and act under uncer-
tainty or even deal with situations having limited previous
experience. ANNs are mathematic models consisting of inter-
connected processing nodes (neurons) under a pre-specified to-
pology (layers).
As shown in Fig. 1 and Table 1, GSI and the fractal dimension are
represented using different values according to joint properties on
rock mass surface, respectively. Therefore, GSI is closely related
with the fractal dimension, as mentioned in the literature (Fardin
et al., 2004; Jiang et al., 2006; Alameda-Hernandez et al., 2014).
Recently, ANN is widely used in engineering practice. For
example, back-propagation (BP) ANN is used to predict deforma-
tion modulus and GSI of jointed rock mass (Lemy and
Hadjigeorgiou, 2003; Sonmez et al., 2006).
The BP networks consist of an input layer, one or more hidden
layers and an output layer. Each layer is composed of different
processing units (also called neurons), connected to the units of the
next layer. A transfer function processes input data that reach the
corresponding neuron. To differentiate between different process-
ing units, values called biases are introduced in the transfer func-
tions. These biases are referred to as the temperature of a neuron.
During training of the network, data are processed through the
network, until they reach the output layer (forward pass). In this
layer, the output is compared to the GSI value (the “true” output)
(8)
obtained from Fig. 1. The difference or error between both is pro-
cessed back through the network (backward pass) by updating the
individual weights of the connections and the biases of the individual
neurons. The input and output data are mostly represented as vectors
called training pairs. The process as mentioned above is repeated for
all the training pairs in the dataset, until the network error converges
to a minimum threshold defined by a corresponding cost function.
We have used 3-layer BP ANN for predicting the GSI of the
surface of jointed rock mass. In 3-layer BP network, output signal yk
is expressed as
2 ! 3
X
m X
n
yk ¼ f 4 o
Wkj f Wjih xi  qhj  qok 5 (9)
j¼1 i¼1
where xi is the i-th input vector of ANN (i ¼ 1, 2, ., n); yk is the k-th
output vector of ANN (k ¼ 1, 2, ., n); Wjih is the weight vector from
input layer to hidden layer (j ¼ 1, 2, ., m); Wkjo is the weight vector
from hidden layer to output layer (k ¼ 1, 2, ., l); qj and qk are the
h o
biases of hidden and output layers, respectively; f(,) is the transfer
function; and n, m and l are the neurons of input, hidden and output
layers, respectively.
On the basis of GSI chart, we establish an ANN model, in which
the input neurons are the fractal dimension and surface condition
index (i.e. roughness and weathering condition), and the output
neuron is a GSI value (Fig. 3). At this point, the surface condition
706 K. Hong et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 9 (2017) 702e708

Fig. 3. The structure of 3-layer BP ANN used in this study.

index is changed from zero (very good, i.e. very rough and fresh Fig. 4 shows a change of the squared sum of learning errors
unweathered surface) to 100 (very poor, i.e. slickenside and highly according to the learning iteration.
weathered surface). As a result, we set up the mean square error as 103 and the
Here, the number of neurons of hidden layer is first set to three maximum learning number as 1500 times. After training 1028
and it is finally determined via learning procedure to establish the times, the mean square error of the ANN is reached to threshold
most effective ANN structure. As a result of learning with one by
one increasing the neurons number of hidden layer, the learning Table 2
Comparisons of GSI values by two methods.
error is minimized at 13 neurons, when the highest accuracy of
ANN learning is reached. The transfer function between input layer No. GSI value Relative error (%)
and hidden one is tansigmoid and that between hidden layer and Previous New
output one is purelin.
1 95 94 1.1
In general, the output vector, containing all yk of the neurons of 2 97 98 1
the output layer, is not the same as the true output vector y*k (i.e. the 3 89 89 0
GSI value obtained from Fig. 1). The mean square error (Ek) between 4 86 88 2.3
these vectors is made during processing the inputeoutput vector 5 75 75 0
6 82 81 1.2
pair and can be calculated as follows:
7 78 80 2.6
8 92 94 2.2

1X * 2 9 76 74 2.6
Ek ¼ yk  yk (10) 10 79 81 2.5
2 11 58 58 0
12 73 72 1.4
Learning dataset involves 310 data made according to the rock 13 91 92 1.1
mass classification and surface conditions of rock mass in GSI chart 14 62 61 1.6
(Fig. 1) given by Hoek and Brown (1997) and 40 data among them 15 77 76 1.3
are used for checking the accuracy of the ANN. 16 59 58 1.7
17 68 69 1.5
18 77 78 1.3
19 56 55 1.8
20 65 66 1.5
21 76 74 2.6
22 86 86 0
23 58 56 3.5
24 76 75 1.3
25 65 64 1.5
26 93 95 2.2
27 83 82 1.2
28 66 68 3
29 49 50 2
30 55 56 1.8
31 70 72 2.9
32 77 78 1.3
33 97 96 1
34 82 83 1.2
35 84 85 1.2
36 86 88 2.3
37 74 73 1.4
38 68 66 2.9
39 85 85 0
Fig. 4. Change of squared sum of learning error according to learning iteration in BP
40 56 58 3.6
ANN.
 K. Hong et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 9 (2017) 702e708 707

Fig. 5. Interface for determining GSI of jointed rock mass.

error, and the relative error between the GSI value predicted by
ANN and the GSI value given in the GSI chart is below 3.6%
(Table 2).
Fig. 5 shows the interface, coded by using built-in tools of
MATLAB 7.0, such as image processing, fractal analysis and ANN,
based on the proposed method.
5. Application example
We present an example for determining the GSI value of rock
mass around the working at Kangdong Coal Mine Complex in
Korean Peninsula. The Coal Mine Complex is exploiting anthra-
cite seam, formed during the Permian period, upper Paleozoic
era.
The considered working, as main haulage drift, is driven into
relatively stable rock mass, which mainly consists of sandstone as a
footwall of the target coal seam. The rock mass is slightly weath-
ered with one or two groups of joint sets, and the uniaxial
compressive strength of rock samples is approximately 88 MPa,
which corresponds to the class I rock according to rock mass clas-
sification determined from total ratings (Bieniawski, 1978).
Images of rock mass in a working of about 800 m long are taken
every 10 m spacing. In total, we have taken 240 images on rock
mass for left and right walls, and roof side. Fig. 6 shows an example
for some sections.
Results of determining the GSI value for every section are listed
in Table 3. As shown in Table 3, GSI values vary between 88 and 93
in the considered sections.

Fig. 6. Images of rock masses around the working taken at (a) 400e410 m, (b) 410e420 m, (c) 420e430 m, and (d) 430e440 m from the entry.

Table 3
GSI values of jointed rock mass in different sections.

Size of lattice Number of joints in every class Fractal dimension GSI value
network
Section a Section b Section c Section d Section a Section b Section c Section d Section a Section b Section c Section d

21 3 3 1 1 1.382 1.3505 1.225 1.1916 88 89 92 93

22 10 6 3 2
23 22 30 7 7
24 57 68 23 20
25 125 117 57 69
26 314 275 178 142
708 K. Hong et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 9 (2017) 702e708
6. Conclusions
In this study, we propose a method to quantitatively determine
the GSI using images of in situ jointed rock mass. An application
example is given to verify the applicability of the method. Con-
clusions are drawn as follows:
(1) The GSI chart of jointed rock mass given by Hoek and Brown
(1997) can be quantified by combining image processing,
fractal theory and ANN. Especially, the fractal dimension in
Table 1 can be used as an alternative tool to quantify standard
rock masses in GSI chart.
(2) The proposed method is comparably objective and does not
need rich experience.
(3) This method must be further improved, so that it can be
applied to loose and soft rock mass.
Conflict of interest
The authors wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of
interest associated with this publication and there has been no
significant financial support for this work that could have influ-
enced its outcome.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to the engineer Mr. Zongha Ri in Kangdong
Coal Mine Complex. The authors express sincere thanks, for the
English revision, to Prof. Kangsob Kim in Kim Chaek University of
Technology, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The authors
would like to thank all reviewers for their valuable comments. The
authors also thank the Editors and Editor-in-Chief of this journal for
their guidance and suggestions.
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