• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.426-441
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• 2018

Recently, the generalized Hoek-Brown (GHB) failure criterion has been actively employed in various rock engineering calculations, but the analytical form of the corresponding Mohr failure envelope is not available, making it difficult to extend the application of the GHB criterion. In order to overcome this disadvantage, this study proposes a new method to express the tangential friction angle as an explicit function of normal stress by invoking the polynomial best-fitting to the relationship between normal stress and tangent friction angle implied in the GHB failure function. If this normal stress - tangential friction angle relationship is best-fitted with linear or quadratic polynomial function, it is possible to find the analytical root for tangential friction angle. Subsequently, incorporating the root into the relationship between shear stress and tangential friction angle accomplishes the derivation of the approximate Mohr envelope for the GHB criterion. It is demonstrated that the derived approximate Mohr failure envelopes are very accurate in the entire range of GSI value.