Numerical simulation on rockburst of underground opening triggered by dynamic disturbance

The dynamic disturbance, which is termed as the time-dependent loading such as explosion, vibration, stress impact from neighboring rockbursts, earthquakes, may trigger the rockbursts around the underground opening at depth. A numerical model capable of studying the dynamic failure process of rock under coupled static geo-stress and dynamic disturbance is proposed, and it is implemented into the Rock Failure Process Analysis (RFPA), a general finite element package to analyze the damage and failure process of engineering materials such as rock and concrete. Based on the consideration of the static geo-stress, the RFPA-Dynamics is used to simulate the rockburst that is deemed to be triggered by dynamic disturbance around the deep underground opening. The effect of lateral pressure coefficient and dynamic disturbance waveform on the development of failure zone around the underground opening is numerically simulated. The numerical results indicate that the dynamic disturbance is one of the most important mechanisms that trigger the rockbursts around underground opening. Therefore, it is of theoretical and practical significance to investigate the effect of dynamic disturbance on the rockbursts of underground opening, especially for the underground excavation at depth where the surrounding rockmass is highly stressed. The numerical results also reveal that the contribution of the dynamic disturbances is closely pertinent to both the static geo-stress condition and the waveforms of the dynamic disturbance. In general, dynamic disturbance brings about the greater influences on the stability of underground opening with its increasing magnitude and prolonged duration. However, with regard to the specific static geo-stress condition and characteristics of dynamic disturbance, the contribution of dynamic disturbance to trigger the rockbursts must be examined based on numerical analysis according to the specific geo-stress conditions and characteristics of the dynamic disturbance. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.