• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.219-227
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• 2013

Although Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion has limitations in that it is a linear criterion and the effect of the intermediate principal stress on failure is ignored, this criterion has been widely accepted in rock mechanics design. In order to overcome these shortcomings, the Hoek-Brown failure criterion was introduced and recently a number of 3-D failure criteria incorporating the effect of the intermediate principal stress on failure have been proposed. However, in many rock mechanics designs, the possible failure of rock mass is still evaluated based on Mohr-Coulomb criterion and most of practitioners are accustomed to understanding the strength of rock mass in terms of the internal friction angle and cohesion. Therefore, if the equivalent Mohr-Coulomb strength parameters of the advanced failure criteria are calculated, it is possible to take advantage of the advanced failure criteria in the framework of the Mohr-Coulomb criterion. In this study, a method expressing the tangential Mohr-Coulomb strength parameters in terms of the stress invariant is proposed and it is applied to the generalized Hoek-Brown criterion and the HB-WW criterion. In addition, a new approach describing the geometric meaning of the ${\sigma}_2$-dependency of failure criteria in 3-D principal stress space is proposed. Implementation examples of the proposed method show that the influence of the intermediate principal stress on the tangential friction angle and cohesion of the HB-WW criterion is considerable, which is not the case for the 2-D failure criterion.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.366-372
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• 2014

The generalized Hoek-Brown (H-B) function provides a unique failure condition for a jointed rock mass, in which the strength parameters of rock mass are deduced from the intact values by use of the GSI value. Since it is actually the only failure criterion which accounts for the rock mass conditions in a systematic manner, the generalized H-B criterion finds many applications to the various rock engineering projects. Its nonlinear character, however, limits more active usage of this criterion. Accordingly, many attempts have been made to understand the generalized H-B condition in the framework of the M-C function. This study presents the closed-form expression relating the tangential cohesion to the tangential friction angle, which is derived by the non-dimensional stress transformation of the generalized H-B criterion. By use of the derived equation, it is investigated how the relationship between the tangential cohesion and friction angle of the generalized H-B criterion varies with the quality of rock masses. When only the variation of GSI value is considered, it is found that the tangential friction angle decreases with the increase of GSI, while the tangential cohesion increases with GSI value.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.462-470
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• 2012

Implementing the generalized Hoek-Brown failure criterion in the framework of the Mohr-Coulomb criterion requires the calculation of the equivalent friction angle and cohesion. In the conventional method based on the Balmer (1952)'s theory, the tangential instantaneous friction angle and cohesion are expressed in terms of the minimum principal stress ${\sigma}_3$, which does not provide the information about the dependency of the equivalent parameters on the hydrostatic pressure and the stress path. In this study, this defect of the conventional method has been overcome by representing the equivalent parameters in terms of stress invariants. Through the example implementation of the new method, the influence of the magnitude of the hydrostatic pressure and the Lode angle on the tangential instantaneous friction angle and cohesion is investigated. It turns out that the tangential instantaneous friction angle is maximum when the stress condition is triaxial extension, while the tangential cohesion is maximum when the stress condition is triaxial compression. The dependency of the equivalent Mohr-Coulomb strength parameters on the hydrostatic pressure and the Lode angle tends to be more substantial for the favorable rockmass of larger GSI value.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.284-292
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• 2015

The generalized Hoek-Brown failure criterion, the strength parameters of which are determined by using the GSI index, is an empirical nonlinear failure criterion of rock mass and has been widely employed in various rock engineering practices. Many rock engineering practitioners, however, are still familiar with the description of the strength of rock mass in terms of friction angle and cohesion. In addition, almost all rock mechanics softwares incorporate the simple linear Mohr-Coulomb function. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a tool to implement the Hoek-Brown function in the framework of the Mohr-Coulomb criterion. In this study, the use of upper-bound solution of limit analysis for bearing capacity of a strip footing resting on the ground surface is proposed for the estimation of the equivalent friction angle and cohesion of rock mass incorporating the generalized Hoek-Brown failure criterion. The upper-bound bearing capacity is expressed in terms of friction angle by use of the relationship between tangential friction angle and tangential cohesion implied in the generalized Hoek-Brown function. The friction angle minimizing the upper-bound bearing capacity is taken as the equivalent friction angle. Through the illustrative implementations of the proposed method, the influences of GSI, $m_i$ and D on the equivalent friction angle and cohesion are investigated.

• 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.