An Investigation of the deformation of underground excavations in slat and potash mines

The most widely accepted method for understanding the deformation mechanism of rock is from the use of computer simulation. However, if the changes in rock properties after excavation are significant this will prevent the computer simulation kent predicting the deformation with acceptable accuracy. If the deformations are, however, carefully measured in situ, the resulting data can be more useful far predicting the deformational behavior of underground openings, since the effect of the parameters which influence the deformational behavior are included in the measurement. In this study, extensive data analyses were carried out using the deformation measurements from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which is a permanent nuclear waste repository The results from computer simulations were compared with field measurements to evaluate the assumptions used in the computer simulations, For better description of the deformational behavior around underground excavations, several techniques were developed, namely: (a) the calculation of the zero strain boundary; (b) the evaluation of the influence of adjacent excavations on the deformational behavior of pre-excavated openings; (c) the description of the deformational behavior using in situ measurements; (d) the calculation of the shear stress distribution; and (e) the application of a Neural Network for the prediction of opening deformation.