Spalling Criterion of Hard Brittle Rock Mass Based on Dilatation Lateral Strain

Spalling failure is a typical failure phenomenon after excavation and unloading of a deep, hard brittle rock mass, which seriously threatens the safe construction of deep roadways (tunnels) and other projects. From the engineering viewpoint, it is essential to accurately evaluate the range and depth of surrounding rock spalling failure. From the perspective of the laboratory and engineering site, the strength and formation mechanism of hard rock spalling failure were statistically summarized and analyzed. Under uniaxial and low confining pressure conditions, when the load reached the rock damage stress, cracks in the rock penetrated to form a failure plane approximately parallel to the axial loading direction, and the strength of rock mass spalling was much smaller than that of intact rock spalling. A triaxial compression test was conducted to analyze the dilatation axial strain and dilatation lateral strain characteristics of gneiss. The results showed that dilatation axial strain gradually increased with the increase of confining pressure, whereas dilatation lateral strain was almost unchanged. Therefore, a safety factor (FS) based on dilatation lateral strain was developed. Through comparison with other strain-based spalling criteria, the establishment and physical meaning of the method were described in detail. In addition, FS was applied to analyze the deep roadway of the Hongtoushan Copper Mine in China and the Rm415 test tunnel in Canada. The results showed that the spalling criterion could accurately indicate the range and depth of the surrounding rock spalling failure, which verified the rationality and applicability of the new spalling criterion. Thus, FS can be utilized as a new theory and analysis tool for the assessment and prevention of spalling failure in deep hard rock roadways.