• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.3 s.62
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• pp.259-276
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• 2006

In rock mass subject to high in-situ stresses, the failure process of rock is dominated by the stress-induced fractures growing parallel to the excavation boundary. When the ratio of in situ stresses compared to rock strength is greater than a certain value, progressive brittle failure which is characterized by popping and spatting of rock debris occurs due to stress concentration. Traditional constitutive model like Mohr-Coulomb usually assume that the normal stress dependent frictional strength component and the cohesion strength component are constant, therefore modelling progressive brittle failure will be very difficult. In this study, a series of numerical analyses were conducted for surrounding rock mass near crude oil storage cavern using CW-FS model which was known to be efficient for modelling brittle failure and the results were compared with those of linear Mohr-Coulomb model. Further analyses were performed by varying plastic shear strain limits on cohesion and internal friction angle to find the proper values which yield the matching result with the observed failure in the oil storage caverns. The obtained results showed that CW-FS model could be a proper method to characterize essential behavior of progressive brittle failure in competent rock mass.