Elastoplastic stress analysis of tunnel considering different principal stress directions

Abstract

Based on the unified strength theory, the elastic-plastic stress analysis is carried out under the premise that the first principal stress in two cases of radial stress and circumferential stress, and the formula of the radius of the surrounding rock and the plastic zone is derived. Tunnel surrounding rock has three states which including the elastic state, the elastoplastic state that the maximum principal stress is the radial stress and the elastoplastic state that the maximum principal stress is the circumferential stress. When the elastic-plastic analysis was carried out on the tunnel, the state of the surrounding rock should be judged and the correct formula is chosen to calculate. Analysis results show that the intermediate principal stress is benefit to the rock to give full play to the strength of the potential, so as to improve the stability of surrounding rock of the tunnel and the smaller intermediate principal stress coefficient, the higher sensitivity of the surrounding rock stability to the intermediate stress. When the inside pressure is less than the second critical stress and increasing the hole pressure is beneficial to improving the stability of surrounding rock, while the hole pressure is greater than the second critical stress, the stability of surrounding rock will reduce with the increase of the hole pressure.