Unified Analytical Solutions of Circular Tunnel Excavated in an Elastic-Brittle-Plastic Rock Mass considering Blast-Induced Damage and Dead Weight Loading

Abstract

Stress and deformation around circular tunnel are crucial for optimizing the support system and evaluating the tunnel stability. The damage zone induced by blasting or mechanical excavation can dramatically influence the support design and methods because the self-weight of broken rock mass at the roof of the tunnel can exert a high pressure on the support system, leading to the support system instability due to the overload. This paper presents a new closed-form solution for analyzing the stress and deformation of deep circular tunnel excavated in elastic-brittle rock mass with the consideration of the rock gravity and damage zone by using the unified strength criterion. A new modified equilibrium equation in the fracture zone is used to determine the stress and the radius of fracture zone. The correctness of the solution is also verified by comparison with the numerical simulation results. The results illustrate that the rock gravity, damage zone radius, and intermediate principal stress have an extremely important influence on the ground response. The tunnel surface convergence and damage zone radius with the consideration of the gravity are obviously larger than those without consideration of the gravity. The rock gravity effect under the high intermediate principal stress gradually weakens, illustrating that the intermediate principal stress is beneficial to tunnel stability. Large deformation instability of the tunnel is dependent on the extension of damage zone. The larger the radius of damage zone, the larger both fracture range and tunnel surface deformation. The proposed solution in this study is novel and can be used to assess the ground convergence for different scenarios and to optimize the support system during the early design stage of the tunnel.