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Induced stresses

This document discusses in situ and induced stresses in rock at depth, emphasizing their importance for underground excavation design. It explains how vertical and horizontal stresses are calculated and highlights the challenges in estimating horizontal stresses compared to vertical stresses. The document also introduces Sheorey's model for estimating the horizontal to vertical stress ratio, providing a simplified equation for practical use.

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Mithresh Pushpan
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34 views

Induced stresses

This document discusses in situ and induced stresses in rock at depth, emphasizing their importance for underground excavation design. It explains how vertical and horizontal stresses are calculated and highlights the challenges in estimating horizontal stresses compared to vertical stresses. The document also introduces Sheorey's model for estimating the horizontal to vertical stress ratio, providing a simplified equation for practical use.

Uploaded by

Mithresh Pushpan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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In situ and induced stresses

Introduction

Rock at depth is subjected to stresses resulting from the weight of the overlying strata
and from locked in stresses of tectonic origin. When an opening is excavated in this
rock, the stress field is locally disrupted and a new set of stresses are induced in the
rock surrounding the opening. Knowledge of the magnitudes and directions of these
in situ and induced stresses is an essential component of underground excavation
design since, in many cases, the strength of the rock is exceeded and the resulting
instability can have serious consequences on the behaviour of the excavations.

This chapter deals with the question of in situ stresses and also with the stress
changes that are induced when tunnels or caverns are excavated in stressed rock.
Problems, associated with failure of the rock around underground openings and with
the design of support for these openings, will be dealt with in later chapters.

The presentation, which follows, is intended to cover only those topics which are
essential for the reader to know about when dealing with the analysis of stress
induced instability and the design of support to stabilise the rock under these
conditions.

In situ stresses

Consider an element of rock at a depth of 1,000 m below the surface. The weight of
the vertical column of rock resting on this element is the product of the depth and the
unit weight of the overlying rock mass (typically about 2.7 tonnes/m3 or 0.027
MN/m3). Hence the vertical stress on the element is 2,700 tonnes/m2 or 27 MPa. This
stress is estimated from the simple relationship:

σv = γ z (1)

where σv is the vertical stress


γ is the unit weight of the overlying rock and
z is the depth below surface.

Measurements of vertical stress at various mining and civil engineering sites around
the world confirm that this relationship is valid although, as illustrated in Figure 1,
there is a significant amount of scatter in the measurements.
In situ and induced stresses

Figure 1: Vertical stress measurements from mining and civil engineering projects
around the world. (After Brown and Hoek 1978).

The horizontal stresses acting on an element of rock at a depth z below the surface are
much more difficult to estimate than the vertical stresses. Normally, the ratio of the
average horizontal stress to the vertical stress is denoted by the letter k such that:

σ h = kσ v = k γ z (2)

Terzaghi and Richart (1952) suggested that, for a gravitationally loaded rock mass in
which no lateral strain was permitted during formation of the overlying strata, the
value of k is independent of depth and is given by k = ν (1 − ν ) , where ν is the
Poisson's ratio of the rock mass. This relationship was widely used in the early days
of rock mechanics but, as discussed below, it proved to be inaccurate and is seldom
used today.

Measurements of horizontal stresses at civil and mining sites around the world show
that the ratio k tends to be high at shallow depth and that it decreases at depth (Brown
and Hoek, 1978, Herget, 1988). In order to understand the reason for these horizontal
stress variations it is necessary to consider the problem on a much larger scale than
that of a single site.

2
In situ and induced stresses

Sheorey (1994) developed an elasto-static thermal stress model of the earth. This
model considers curvature of the crust and variation of elastic constants, density and
thermal expansion coefficients through the crust and mantle. A detailed discussion on
Sheorey’s model is beyond the scope of this chapter, but he did provide a simplified
equation which can be used for estimating the horizontal to vertical stress ratio k. This
equation is:
 1
k = 0.25 + 7 Eh  0.001+  (3)
 z

where z (m) is the depth below surface and Eh (GPa) is the average deformation
modulus of the upper part of the earth’s crust measured in a horizontal direction. This
direction of measurement is important particularly in layered sedimentary rocks, in
which the deformation modulus may be significantly different in different directions.

A plot of this equation is given in Figure 2 for a range of deformation moduli. The
curves relating k with depth below surface z are similar to those published by Brown
and Hoek (1978), Herget (1988) and others for measured in situ stresses. Hence
equation 3 is considered to provide a reasonable basis for estimating the value of k.

Figure 2: Ratio of horizontal to vertical stress for different deformation moduli based
upon Sheorey’s equation. (After Sheorey 1994).
3

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