Calculation of Rock Mass Deformation around Deep-Buried Underground Openings, Considering Weight of the Overlying Strata

Abstract

The analytical estimates of stress state of surrounding rock mass around underground openings neglect the overlying strata weight, which results in the disagreement between the calculated and in situ measured displacements. The authors propose the phenomenological theory of deformation in order to eliminate the mentioned inconsistency. The theory is based on the fact that the direction of the roof rock weight load coincides with the orientation of tensile stresses found in an auxiliary problem. The authors introduce a parameter characterizing ratio of roof rock displacements to floor rock displacements, which allows solving inverse problems using the basic supplement—in situ measured displacements in the floor and roof rocks.