Influence of advance direction on surrounding rock stability of main ramp under deep high ground stress

•In this paper, the stability of the surrounding rock under different advance directions is study by using Flac3D numerical analysis software.•The extent of the risk zone of the roadway surrounding rock is defined based on the Drucker-Prager criterion, which can be used as the new basis for the design of roadway support parameters.•Through the rock mass joints and fissures on-site investigation, the distribution characteristics of the dominant joints and fissures groups of the roadway surrounding rock are determined. The stability of key blocks around the roadway is analyzed with the Unwedge software. Due to the widespread use of trackless equipment in metal mines, the main ramp has become a major development roadway in large mines. Under deep high ground stress condition, the stability of the surrounding rock of the main ramp is subject to significant variability due to the change in the advance direction, leading to structural failure in different areas of the roadway. Because the support design scheme of surrounding rock of main ramp will not pay attention to the advance direction of roadway, leading to the key support area of the surrounding rock is not clear, resulting failure of the local supporting form occur frequently. Therefore, this paper adopts the combination of on-site investigation and numerical simulation to carry out the stability analysis of the surrounding rock under different advance directions of the roadway. Through on-site investigation, various failure modes of surrounding rock induced by the change of the advance direction of the roadway are summarized, and the key supporting area of surrounding rock of main ramp is determined according to the angle change between the roadway advance direction and the intermediate principal stress. The extent of the risk zone of the roadway surrounding rock is defined based on the Drucker-Prager criterion, which can be used as the new basis for the design of roadway support parameters. The results show that: As the angle between the advance direction and the intermediate principal stress increases, the degree of deformation of the surrounding rock decreases linearly, and the volume of the plastic and risk zones of the surrounding rock decreases nonlinearly. Based on the distribution of the strain energy density of the roadway surrounding rock, when the angle between the advance direction and the intermediate principal stress is small, the roadway surrounding rock is more prone to the floor heave ph