Investigating Dynamical Stress Adjustment Induced by Transient Excavation in a Deep-Buried Tunnel

Abstract

Solutions for unloading stress waves in the continuous medium are widely applied to analyze the transient effect of excavation unloading in deep-buried tunnel engineering. This paper explores a semianalytic model for studying dynamic stress adjustments during transient excavation unloading in deep underground tunnels. The model employs finite time steps and toroidal elements on temporal and spatial scales, utilizing an iterative algorithm for dynamic response calculation. Griffith and Mohr–Coulomb strength criteria are introduced to calculate the difference in the critical generalized additional stress. This difference classifies stress adjustment paths into crack–shear (crack first and then shear) and shear models (shear only). Updated discontinuous boundaries are considered in the cracked element. Investigating the effects of unloading duration and initial in situ stress on dynamic response, a stress release index is realized to quantify the dynamic stress adjustment. Shorter unloading durations lead to more pronounced stress fluctuations, and higher stress release aggregation results in smaller plastic zones. Positive correlations between initial in situ stress and response characteristics are observed, resembling triaxial unloading test results. The model proposed in this paper enhances the understanding of the failure mechanism in the unloading process for deep hard rocks in underground engineering.