Accounting for depth-wise linear change of stresses in the intact rock mass in geomechanical problems

Abstract

The authors discuss formulation of boundary conditions in problems on stress-strain state of rocks around an underground excavation. The classical formulations neglect the presupposition of linearity of stress field in an intact rock mass with depth and disregard the discrepancy of the calculated and actual behavior of rocks. The presented study is based on the linearity of initial stresses and the computational domain boundary conditions that assume stress linearity and unaltered boundary conditions during drivage. The problem on stress-strain state is divided into two problems due to option of formulating accurately boundary conditions for the horizontal boundary and the absence of such option for the vertical boundary.